How to really protect a sheet.
Posted by Kai Pinta on January 28, 2002 12:02 AM
Do you know how to really protect a sheet in Excel97 which will still work after left-Shift+open (workbook_open), sheet-unprotect-hacking-programs (ActiveSheet.Unprotect-loops), font-color-changes and column-hidings. Kai
Posted by DK on January 28, 2002 5:28 AM
No matter how elaborate your protection anyone with a good general knowledge of Excel will be able to extract whatever they want from your workbook. I just think that Excel is not designed to be super-secure.
However, that said, using long passwords (>15 characters) seems to stump some of the password hacking programs for workbook protection.
Regards,
D
Posted by Kai Pinta on January 29, 2002 5:06 AM
I tested with 18 character long password on workbook protection and simple ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect opened it. Is it possible to disable the .unprotect method on VBA before the excel starts to run workbook_open? Kai
Posted by DK on January 29, 2002 5:32 AM
Kai,
Are you protecting the workbook with Tools, Protection, Protect Workbook and then entering your password? ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect requires the password as an argument if the active workbook has been password protected.
The only alternative I can think of is that you're using file open protection (the user needs to enter a password to open the workbook in the first place). Is that what you're talking about?
Regards,
D
Posted by Kai Pinta on January 31, 2002 1:04 AM
I need to let the user to open the file but I need to restrict the user not to modify data-table-sheets, formulas and VBA's. I was thinking something like "Worksheets(1).ChartObjects(1).Chart.ProtectFormatting = True" which disables a excel function completely. This example works only for charts but do you know something like this for sheets.
I think this problem sounds like SQL/Access solution but I do not like to use it. Kai
