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

[test]

great tips....you rule man.. i owe you

[Rupert]

Thanks! Worked like a charm.

[Rupert Russell]

Hi you have a typeo in this posting

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

Should read:

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

[Mike]

Thanks You!!! I don't know how I found your solution. But there is an old Chinese saying that "The Master will come when the Student is Ready" I was ready and you appeared. I got the file that needed to be worked on and searched for your solution and within ten (10) minutes the file was ready and two satifised users.

[gUt]

Thanks mate, this is good.

[Satish]

Hi..

Have some query regarding WordML.
We can save a Word file as abc.xml and can view the WML code of the file.

I want to provide the password and readonly attributes to the word file, but
when I save the file as xml it doest work.

Can you plz tell me how to provide Authentication in Word files (Saved as
.xml), so that when we open the (.xml) file the Authentication should work,
which we provide during saving the file.

Note : The following Code doesn't work.
ReadOnly
19E8E61E

Thanks in advance.

ByE

[David]

Worked a treat on a Word document - do have a simple fix for protected Excel files.

Pleasse help!

[rishabh]

it does not work at all

[Monique Verheijen]

I found this page in a Google link an still in 2008 it worked for me (Office 2003) Thanks a lot !!

[stevemac76]

Thank you. That saved my butt.

[Nelson]

Thanks a lot. It worked as you said.

[Wonderthing]

Can't tell you how much I appreciate that. Thank you.

[Elizabeth B]

Thanks Alex, you're a lifesaver! You just saved me many hours' work!

[Brandi]

Thanks man! my normal tricks didnt work... i guess i just needed a litle techie touch.