Daniel, thanks for the info. I was looking on MS web site for Office
Developer and I am confused on what product to purchase. I need the
COM addin to work in Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003.
They have reference:

0 Microsoft Office XP Developer - but it appears that product
is discontinued.
0 Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System. This looks
it will create a COM addin.
0 Visual Studio .NET 2003 - This sounds that whatever it produces
will only work with Office 2003.

Any help in clarifying the confusing MS marketing material is appreciated.


Daniel Klann wrote:
Bill,

Unfortunately what the websites claim is correct regarding protection of the
VBA project. I purchased a password cracking tool a couple of years ago
(for legitimate purposes) and it can break any password. For example, I
protect a project using this complex and long password (32 chars):-

%^ll-02-+$j';L*30)65Jï£AKJ%_!~2

Because of the encryption algorithm used there are many possible
combinations that could be used to break this e.g. T8H would unlock a VBA
project protected with the above password. The encryption used for the file
password in Excel is stronger than anything else used in Excel but can still
be broken. In this case it is worth using a password that is long and
complex.

Anyway, creating your own COM addin is a fairly straightforward task but you
need to have software that will allow you to create it e.g. Office Developer
Edition, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, Microsoft C++ and Microsoft Visual
Basic 6. Office Developer is probably the easiest method of converting an
existing project into a COM addin.

Hope that helps,
Daniel

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Excel tips 'n' tricks - http://www.danielklann.com
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"Bill Bell" wrote in message
news:0OXqb.102736$275.284545@attbi_s53...

I was wondering if there have been any developments in protecting VBA
code. I was hoping by now there would be some easy way to compile VBA
code into a DLL or COM addin.

I saw some websites claiming to be able to easily break the passwords.
How secure is the password protection? If you have a long password
does that help. I am using Office 2003 and Office XP.

Regards,
Bill Bell