It's true that most of the "password recovery" software advertised for
Access is either for overall database password, or for user/group level
security, not a VBA password.
As for your remark about copyright issues - this is perfectly
understandable. Except that I am the copyright holder myself...
There are legal issues with copyrights, but the biggest problem we face in
the newsgroups is that we don't _know_ whose database it is and we really
can't afford the time to research and dig into it.
In fact, at least one very knowledgeable person who once would crack Access
security for a fee decided that the legal risk was just too much. He now
does data recovery from corrupted databases, and does it well, but he will
not accept a job to crack security. Interestingly, some equally talented
individuals in other jurisdictions (outside the US) gave up security cracks
just because there was not sufficient ROI. It would do no good to refer you
to them because they just will not DO that work anymore.
None of the above, of course, helps you with your problem. I'm sorry I
can't be of help -- I'm certainly not sufficiently knowledgeable about
Access / Jet internals to do the work/code, and, as it's not something I
need in my work or avocation, I don't know the currently-active participants
who do that sort of work.
For future reference, however, in the relatively few instances where I am
involved with secured databases, my development copy is unsecured (and only
available to me and/or the development team of which I may be a part), and
security is applied to a copy just before release. If data security is
important, then the data should probably be kept in a server database
back-end which will have better security than Access/Jet.
I don't worry that much about my database design being stolen because once
the business problem has been addressed and solved, an experienced and
competent Access developer can usually recreate an application in only a
fraction of the time it took to originally create it, just from observing it
executing and noting what it does. Also, all my work is on "bespoke
systems" for just one customer/company -- I might have a different attitude,
or use a different development tool, if I were creating applications for
general use and wide distribution. (But, even with the best of tools, the
"phreaks" take security as a challenge and often publish cracks as soon as
and sometimes before -- if they've had access to a beta or field test copy--
a new release of a well-secured commercial product comes out.)
Good luck with your searching for workable password recovery.
Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP
