The security patch released on 11th November for Excel 2007 causes a
significant problem with Excel 2007 VBA applications.

The bug is related to protecting and unprotecting worksheets.

The statements ActiveSheet.Protect and ActiveSheet.Unprotect work fine.

However the statement Application.Worksheets("worksheet name").Protect no
longer works correctly. Whilst it protects the sheet (and the unprotect
statement unprotects the sheet) it causes content from sheets which are not
selected to bleed into the selected sheet. So if you run a VBA macro, eg by
pressing a button on a sheet, and the macro runs the
Application.Worksheets("worksheet name").Protect statement bits of other
non-selected sheets bleed in the currently selected sheet.

It's clearly an Excel bug as all content which has bleeded into the sheet
will vanish if you simply minimize the workbook and immediately maximize it
again. Or simply select another sheet then go back to the original sheet.

ie it's cosmetic but you end up with a hell of a mess.

I have tested this with multiple Excel applications on Windows XP (Dell
desktop) and Vista. (Acer laptop).

I removed KB973593 and the problem vanished.

I re-installed KB973593 and the problem came back.

It's obviously possible to work around the problem, but when you have a
large number of applications it's a lot of work. Given protecting sheets
this way is very common and perfectly good practice I hope Microsoft can
issue a fix ASAP.

I just installed KB973593 (Nov 2009 not 2007), I cannot replicate the
problem you describe in 2007 SP2. I did this

Renamed a sheet to "myName"
populated the sheet with some data, actually three tables
put a Forms button on the sheet linked to a macro with

Application.Worksheets("myName").Protect

I ran the macro, I did not see any "bleeding"

I unprotected the sheet, copied the button to another sheet and tried again
(ie to protect a non-active sheet, again all fine. Intuitively I did not
expect a problem

Application.Worksheets("myName")
and
ActiveSheet
both return an object reference to a sheet. Once the reference is created
the syntax used to make it is irrelevant. The only thing that might be
different for some actions is whether the sheet is active or not (you didn't
say).

Try this -
Dim ws As Worksheet

Set ws = ActiveSheet
ws.Protect

and then
Set ws = Worksheets("worksheet name")
ws.Protect

Any difference ?

If you are still getting problems post back with full details how others may
replicate your scenario, including any particular data, formatting, shapes
on the sheet (if relevant), sheet name, and anything else that is
specifically required to reproduce your problem, eg some other code in your
macro. Obviously restrict to the minimum needed.

Regards,
Peter T


"Steve Smithfield" wrote in message
...
The security patch released on 11th November for Excel 2007 causes a
significant problem with Excel 2007 VBA applications.

The bug is related to protecting and unprotecting worksheets.

The statements ActiveSheet.Protect and ActiveSheet.Unprotect work fine.

However the statement Application.Worksheets("worksheet name").Protect
no longer works correctly. Whilst it protects the sheet (and the
unprotect statement unprotects the sheet) it causes content from sheets
which are not selected to bleed into the selected sheet. So if you run a
VBA macro, eg by pressing a button on a sheet, and the macro runs the
Application.Worksheets("worksheet name").Protect statement bits of
other non-selected sheets bleed in the currently selected sheet.

It's clearly an Excel bug as all content which has bleeded into the sheet
will vanish if you simply minimize the workbook and immediately maximize
it again. Or simply select another sheet then go back to the original
sheet.

ie it's cosmetic but you end up with a hell of a mess.

I have tested this with multiple Excel applications on Windows XP (Dell
desktop) and Vista. (Acer laptop).

I removed KB973593 and the problem vanished.

I re-installed KB973593 and the problem came back.

It's obviously possible to work around the problem, but when you have a
large number of applications it's a lot of work. Given protecting sheets
this way is very common and perfectly good practice I hope Microsoft can
issue a fix ASAP.

It has been reported as a bug to MS

Regards,
Peter Thornton

Peter,
Thanks for doing that.
I've refrained from installing all of the current Office security patches.
If one apple is bad maybe the whole bunch is bad?
Regards,
Jim Cone


"Peter T" <peter_t@discussions wrote in message ...
It has been reported as a bug to MS

Regards,
Peter Thornton

Hi Peter,

Is there any response from Microsoft regarding the bug ?
or on a likely fix time ?

Thanks

Richard S

"Peter T" wrote:

It has been reported as a bug to MS

Regards,
Peter Thornton


.

Hi Richard,

Yes MS have acknowledged it, no idea if/when it will be fixed. Or maybe it
has already, I haven't checked.

Regards,
Peter T

"Richard Sebastian" <Richard wrote in
message ...
Hi Peter,

Is there any response from Microsoft regarding the bug ?
or on a likely fix time ?

Thanks

Richard S

"Peter T" wrote:

It has been reported as a bug to MS

Regards,
Peter Thornton


.

On Nov 25, 3:46�am, "Peter T" <peter_t@discussions wrote:
Hi Richard,

Yes MS have acknowledged it, no idea if/when it will be fixed. Or maybe it
has already, I haven't checked.

Regards,
Peter T

"Richard Sebastian" <Richard wrote in
...



Hi Peter,

Is there any response from Microsoft regarding the bug ?
or on a likely fix time ?

Thanks

Richard S

"Peter T" wrote:

It has been reported as a bug to MS

Regards,
Peter Thornton

.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi All, As an added piece of problem definition, the following has
been observed:
1) Win XP SP3
2) Office XP Pro, Excel 2003 & Excel 2007 loaded on the machine
3) Applications in use for 1+ years are failing in all 3 versions.

Deleting KB973593 & KB973475 restores all functionality.

Walt Weber