What to do if I forgot any MS-Office files's password (eg.Word,Excel etc.)?

Question

Is there any utility given by MS-office to solve this problem?

Or any other free authentic softeware to solve this problem?

Answer 1

The password protection / 'encryption' generated by older versions of MS Office (before Office 2000) were very easy to bypass ..  Microsoft got so much stick that they made it REALLY difficult to bypass current versions ..

HOWEVER most people use 'short' passwords and it IS possible to find utilities (or even write you own) that attempts to 'guess' the password (first using what is known as a 'dictionary attack' and then by simply trying all possible combinations of letters/numbers) .. google for 'password recovery'

PS there are a lot of on-line sites that charge for a 'password recovery service' - these are typically OK, however you usually have to send them the file to be 'unlocked', so you might want to think twice before sending them your Company Accounts or whatever :-)

Of course some people are attempting to unlock documents to which they have no right - so there are a lot of criminals offering 'password recovery tools' that insist that you install with 'administrator' rights etc ..... this is NOT a good idea (you will be installing Trojans, key-loggers & root kits along with the 'cracking' tool) .. stick to "open source" or utilities from recognised download sites eg cNet

Answer 2

There are lots of free software to recover lost passwords from MS-Office. Just look for it in download.com or google one. At least that'll help.