Lock down Microsoft Excel macro

Question

I ve spent some time writing an Excel Macro that is potentially worth money to a lot of companies   How can I lock down the macro to prevent people seeing the source   forwarding to other people   Thanks

User · Answer

Generate a protected application for Mac or Windows from your Excel spreadsheet using OfficeProtect with either AppProtect or QuickLicense AddLicense   There is a demonstation video called  Protect Excel Spreedsheet  at www excelsoftware com videos

User · Answer

You can check out this new product at http   hivelink io  it allows you to properly protect your sensitive macros    The Excel password system is extremely weak - you can crack it in 2 minutes just using a basic HEX editor  I wouldn t recommend relying on this to protect anything   I wrote an extensive post on this topic here  Protecting Code in an Excel Workbook

User · Answer

The modern approach is to move away from VBA for important code  and write a  NET managed Add-In using c  or vb net  there are a lot of resources for this on the www  and you could use the Express version of MS Visual Studio

User · Answer

Protect Lock Excel VBA Code      When we write VBA code it is often desired to have the VBA Macro code   not visible to end-users  This is to protect your intellectual   property and or stop users messing about with your code  Just be aware   that Excel s protection ability is far from what would be considered   secure  There are also many VBA Password Recovery  tools  for sale on the   www       To protect your code  open the Excel Workbook and go to   Tools Macro Visual Basic Editor  Alt F11   Now  from within the VBE go   to Tools VBAProject Properties and then click the Protection page tab   and then check  Lock project from viewing  and then enter your   password and again to confirm it  After doing this you must save    close  amp  reopen the Workbook for the protection to take effect     Emphasis mine   Seems like your best bet   It won t stop people determined to steal your code but it s enough to stop casual pirates   Remember  even if you were able to distribute a compiled copy of your code there d be nothing to stop people decompiling it

User · Answer

Just like you can password protect workbooks and worksheets  you can password protect a macro in Excel from being viewed  and executed    Place a command button on your worksheet and add the following code lines    First  create a simple macro that you want to protect   Range  A1   Value    This is secret code  Next  click Tools  Then VBAProject Properties        Click Tools  VBAProject Properties      On the Protection tab  check  Lock project for viewing  and enter a password twice      Enter a Password Twice   Click OK  Save  close and reopen the Excel file  Try to view the code      The following dialog box will appear   Password Protected from being Viewed  You can still execute the code by clicking on the command button but you cannot view or edit the code anymore  unless you know the password   The password for the downloadable Excel file is  easy     If you want to password protect the macro from being executed  add the following code lines     Dim password As Variant password   Application InputBox  Enter Password    Password Protected    Select Case password     Case Is   False          do nothing     Case Is    easy          Range  A1   Value    This is secret code      Case Else         MsgBox  Incorrect Password  End Select    Result when you click the command button on the sheet     Password Protected from being Executed  Explanation  The macro uses the InputBox method of the Application object  If the users clicks Cancel  this method returns False and nothing happens  InputBox disappears   Only when the user knows the password   easy  again   the secret code will be executed  If the entered password is incorrect  a MsgBox is displayed  Note that the user cannot take a look at the password in the Visual Basic Editor because the project is protected from being viewed

User · Answer

you can set a password to your vba code but this can be quite easily broken up   you can also create an addin and compile it into a DLL  See here for more information  That s at least the most secure way to protect your code   Regards

[excel] Lock down Microsoft Excel macro

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