How to Crack, Unprotect or Remove Document Protection in Word

Ever run into situation where someone sends you a read-only password protected Word document, but wants you to make changes?

Here's how to crack it if you are using the newer versions of Word:

If you are using office XP or 2003, you can change the view to HTML-Code using Microsoft Script-Editor by pressing the [Alt]+[Shift]+[F11] key combination.

Search for "Password" and you will find somethimg like this:
  <w:DocumentProtection>ReadOnly</w:DocumentProtection>
  <w:UnprotectPassword>19E8E61E</w:UnprotectPassword>

To remove the protection:
  -Just remowe those two lines, and after saving the document , the protection is gone.

To remove the password:
  -replace the Password, here "19E8E61E", with "00000000", save the Document and close "Script-Editor".

Alternative you can save your document as .html and use a html-Editor.

Now if I could only figure out how to crack protected Acrobat files.

Note that this does not work for File Open password protected Office files. Office encrypts the files with a 40 bit key for this type of protection. To break that you have to use either a brute force password hacker or a decrypter that tries all possible key combos until it finds the right one.

There's actually a free command line utility, named GuaWord that will decrypt Word documents. Keep in mind that it takes a few days to go through all the combinations to find the right one.

There are also other 3rd party tools to do the same thing that cost from between $30-60 dollars for a single system license.

Comments

[dennis]

hii
couldnt crack the word file mc script editor gives a error tht file is use
plz help me out with this

[Sam Gordon]

Hey, thanks a bunch, your information has been extremely helpful.

[Bob]

Workt perfect. Xactly wat I needed. Thx a bunch.

[Ken]

Excellent information. Had to wait for HTML editor feature to self-install in Word, but after that no problem. Appreciate the info.

[Paul]

Oh that is great info. Thanks much.

[David]

Alex, you ROCK! I owe you a beer.

[Ray Kirkwood]

Many thanks. So simple when you know how!

[Richard]

I'm trying to get this to work, however, perhaps I'm missing a step. In order for me to convert to HTML I need to have the document open and therefore already need the password. We do receive these documents on many occasions and it would be really helpful if I could get this to work.

[Alexander Scoble]

This method only works for files that are Read-Only protected. Files that are Open File password protected are actually encrypted so you need to find software that will find the encryption key used to encrypt the document and decrypt it for you.

Such applications are usually around $30.

[Enrico (Italy)]

Alex, you are GREAT! You allowed me to get out of a fix.

[Kurt]

Oh man, what a great workaround. You made me a hero today. Thx.

[Shylock]

First class! saved me a bucket of work transferring info from a protected document. Thanks!

[Scott Armstrong]

Works in Word 2000 as well. Just do a search for "documentprotection" instead and erase the document protection line that it finds.

[to0w1r3d]

worked perfectly - sweet, thx.

[Steve Watson]

This works great ...do you have a solution for excel too?

[scott_edward]

this worked great for me. the save as HTML was dumping the password info, but the opening in script editor did the trick. good stuff, here. thanks

[Jim]

Thanks, it worked perfectly!

[fdfafa]

is there any way to do the same thing with winzip????

[TraceyAllen]

This worked perfectly!! Thanks so much!

[Francisco Mariscal]

It was a great help, thanks. It works exactly as I Need

[Luca]

Great fix. It saved me alot of time!

[Steve Sharpe]

Thanks for the info... it saved our Accounting person's behind & made me look good in the process.

[AndyG]

Many thanx, Our document writer encountered same problem, asked me for solution, searched net expecting to need a freeware remover tool and found your page on the first search-handed the solution over to her and it worked 1st go - your solution found and implimented within 2min of request.

[Eduard]

Unfortunately it didn't worked for me, the search didn't find the line.
What worked like a charm for me was the following:
-Open the document read-only
-Save as .rtf
-Open the .rtf document and save as .doc
With this steps I got rid of the password and the document had the same format more or less.
Cheers!

[Luit Wagemaker]

Works like a charm, Thank a lot!!!

[Le Baron von Hell]

Thank you very much, this saved my day!!!

[Bjørn Andersen]

Well thank you. THAT was one hell of a nice tip, just open the doc in the script editor.

Thanks agian,
Bjørn

[Mark Macaulay]

Thank you so much. Worked like a charm.

[paul-s]

Great help thanks, trying to fill out a job application form and all the field are too small to get details in and the form is locked, well not anymore.

Thanks

[Jon Wedd .com]

Thanks a lot for the helpful info!

[JP]

It worked perfect Thank you very much

[EP]

It doesn't matter if you post this or not. However, let me tell you that this procedure worked to perfection. I had read the same procedure in other places but yours was step by step and fixed the issue that I had. The key was the specificity of using Windows XP and using the MS Script Editor.

Thanks a million

EP

[M Rubensson]

I tried this but unfortunately the Script Editor immediately crashed... :-(

The Visual Basic Editor works fine but the MS Script Editor doesn't. The error message gives this information:

AppName: mse7.exe AppVer: 11.0.5510.0 AppStamp:3f137edb ModName: ntdll.dll ModVer: 5.1.2600.2180 ModStamp:411096b4
fDebug: 0 Offset: 000105f8

Any ideas? Complete reinstall... ?

[phil]

Note that you can also carry out the same trick in the XML file - save as .XML, open in a plain vanilla text editor, look for 'password' and replace the encoded password with zeros as described above.
In my experience this seems to retain some table formatting better than HTML route.
Thanks for the tip though - I wouldn't have tried the XML route without it!

[Mustang Holmes]

So simply, but so clever........you Rule!

[samy]

Simple and Easy. Excellent info.
Thanks and keep up the good work.

[Garry McDonald]

Thanks, such a simple solution, just pee'd that I didn't think of that!

Cheers

Garry

[Patricia]

Thanks, this was so simple and really helped!

[Tim]

Thanks, I cant belive it was that easy!

[George Russell]

Hello,
Could somebody please help me!
I have got a piece of coursework saved in word as a word document, using word 2003. I have put a password protection on it and cannot remember the password. I have read about saving it as a different format, but i cant open the file to save it as a different format. I cant get to the hHTML because i cant open the file!
What do I do?
PLease Help!
Thanks Alot
George

[Gregg]

U rock! I followed your instructions on how to unlock a ms word password protected document and it worked awsome. Thanks soooooo much.

[Johnny]

I have got a piece of coursework saved in word as a word document, using word 2003. I have put a password protection on it and cannot remember the password. I have read about saving it as a different format, but i cant open the file to save it as a different format. I cant get to the hHTML because i cant open the file!
What do I do?
PLease Help!

[Robert]

It's been a while since you wrote this article but to view a protected acrobat file without the inner security restrictions no printing, modifications, etc just download ghostscript (the engine) and gsview, they are both free just do a search. Open the file in question using gsview et voila no inner security restrictions. Note that this method does not work for files that have password protection to open the file.

[B:ill]

Thank you sir!! This worked like a charm and just saved me quit a bit of time.
Does this work for excel files as well?

[Brenda]

Thnx heap!! This information is extremely useful! I've bookmarked this page for future reference :) Thanks again, Alex

[Sid]

Thanks a lot....this was really helpful.... :) :)

[Rohit]

Worked perfectly!!!Thanks a lot for the info.

[Lemik]

Thank you very much. Nice work...

[Astrorat]

Great stuff!! Thanks.
THis also works for form protection.
Remove the line Forms, and save the document! You can then set a new password! Thanks for the lead :)

[Vijay]

Thank....this is very useful.