Quick one for the fellow IT guy's and girl's

Got a user that's forgotten there password to a Excel file, anyone got a usefull tool to break/workout the password?

Cheers

Rich

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by rwoodcock01

Got a user that's forgotten there password to a Excel file, anyone got a usefull tool to break/workout the password?

Cheers

Rich

This claims to do it - and its free.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...scription.html

David

http://www.elkraft.ntnu.no/~huse/xlpassword.htm

[timwilky]

Tell them you have no sympathy, if they must use password protection it is their reponsibility to manage their password.

Originally Posted by timwilky

Tell them you have no sympathy, if they must use password protection it is their reponsibility to manage their password.

Like wise, if not, there are lots of password crackers for Excel. You get what you pay for though and they can be a useful tool in the armoury against general idiots.

Originally Posted by mysteryjimbo

Like wise, if not, there are lots of password crackers for Excel. You get what you pay for though and they can be a useful tool in the armoury against general idiots.

Agreed. Fsck them. They passworded it, they can write the document again. T'is the way I treat our internal users and also our clients (although I word things nicer to clients)

Originally Posted by Baph

Agreed. Fsck them. They passworded it, they can write the document again. T'is the way I treat our internal users and also our clients (although I word things nicer to clients)

I used to have a similar problem with unhelpful IT staff who thought that they were there to sit around and generally rule the roost, and one day I'd had enough and told them that I was profit and they were overhead.

I didn't have any more problems after that.

Originally Posted by Ed

I used to have a similar problem with unhelpful IT staff who thought that they were there to sit around and generally rule the roost, and one day I'd had enough and told them that I was profit and they were overhead.

I didn't have any more problems after that.

Sorry Ed but I have no sympathy for people that password protect documents kept (and backed up) in a "secure" environment when they have no justifiable need to secure individual documents.

I'll quite happily (and have done so today) spend 4hours looking at an issue only to find that there's nothing wrong with our systems and that it was a PEBKAC error. Staff/clients might not like the response they get in a situation like that, but even then, where an issue NEEDS fixing, I fix it. If it doesn't need it, I don't.

P.S. I am also profit for the company, as anything marked as "No Fault Found" or "User Education" is a chargable event to all our clients.

Edit: My boss, his boss, and his boss thereafter (company chairman) also take my view. PEBKAC errors can be resolved by the person causing them unless it's mission critical.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by Ed

I used to have a similar problem with unhelpful IT staff who thought that they were there to sit around and generally rule the roost, and one day I'd had enough and told them that I was profit and they were overhead.

I didn't have any more problems after that.

The problem is that users at time expect miracles. I had one former manager who has returned after 3 years on contract (During which time the company has seriously evolved) complain to me about the unhelpful IT staff. He did not see why he should register helpdesk calls with a central helpdesk and how dare the IT dept refuse to help him without a helpdesk number.

I then had to explain that the number of it staff on site was reduced from the 30 when he was last there to 3 technicians, 1st and 2nd line support calls were now handled remotely and only by using the system would the business actually know how many support calls they generated and the KPIs agains the SLA etc.

IT staff usually delight in helping staff, but I used to get the "How do I questions" "I don't know, you are the application user", "But you should, you are the IT manager"

If convienient, you then use their exisiting on-line help etc. This is when it become frustrating as you know that in 6 weeks you will get the "Can you show me that again". They are incapable of using the provided help systems. and therefore become an overhead instead of productive member of staff.