Hello

Ironically I was led to discover and try OpenOffice becasue of a
"corruption" problem in Excel that gave me a message "Unable to read
file" . Turns out it was actually the result of a documented bug:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=819853

OpenOffice not only opnened the same "corrupted" Excel file OK with no
erors (the PivotTables however were not recogniosed, as OpenOffice has
equivalents called DataPilots), but I discovered the seemingly well
known quirk that you can DEFEAT any Excel workbook/worksheet/VBA code
protection by opening it up in OpenOffice.

Does this basically mean that it is virtually a waste of time now to
even bother adding passwords to Excel workbooks/worksheets or even
creating Excel workbooks/worksheets/VBA Code thinking you are
"protrecting" any of your work?

How have things changed since OpenOffice allows you to open any Excel
file regardless of the protection level?

I mean, should anyone really bother with protection anymore except to
prevent purely "innocent" users from unwittingly mucking up a spread
sheet?

Ace70