Linn said:
Which was all of 2 minutes before I posted. How often do YOU poll the
newsgroups to check for new posts? I poll at 10-minute intervals.
you can use the Office applications to password
protect files so you need a password to open them for reading or writing.
Does that help?
If your boss' concern is to ensure they can use password-protected
Office files after an employee dies or is fired, that password is easily
broken. It is based on 3 World War 1 era algorithms that are well known
and can easily be cracked.
While Googling (
http://www.google.com/search?q=+office++password)
can find many Office password crackers, your boss might want something
that is geared for professional use and includes support, like
http://www.elcomsoft.com/aopr.html. I've never used it myself but have
heard of other companies using it. I've also read articles where
supposedly no software other than Word is needed to remove the password
(
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/can_i_crack_a_password_protected_microsoft_word_file.html).
This works because saving in a non-Office document format results in
loss of protection (and perhaps other features, like macros).
If just the modify password was specified, watch
.
After all, after you discover all those Office docs that are passworded,
how are you going to unpassword them for employees that are not
currently available or have been terminated? No need to search for
passworded Office files. Just remove the password as you encounter
them.
Create a simple document in Word. Save it. Password that document.
Save it under another filename. Compare the 2 files. What's different?
They're the same size because an area for the password is already
included in the .doc file format for adding the password. However, if
you do a binary compare on the files, they are different. Yet just how
are you going to know what is the offset in each file to find the
password field (to see if empty or not)?
You never said WHICH Office component for which you are trying to obtain
passwords. If Outlook, Nirsoft has a free utility to find passwords for
several e-mail clients (
http://nirsoft.net/utils/mailpv.html).
Glad you got it worked out!