Overview
Have you forgotten the password that you set on your Word 2010 document? Whether you have just forgotten the password, or whether somebody else locked it and you don’t know what the password on the .docx file is, you do have some options.
In this article, I will show you three different options for software tools that will help you either crack the password on your Word doc, or remove the Word document password altogether.
Option 1: Office Password Recovery Pro
Vendor: Avanquest
Price: Free (Demo); $119 $89 Pro Version (Save $30)
Download: direct download is available here. (2.1Mb)
Description: Office Password Recovery Pro offers all Office 2010 files (and all previous versions of Microsoft Office) password recovery. It has some advanced features, including multilingual support, and the ability to perform password cracking on multiple files at the same time. While it’s more expensive than some of the other options, it does include all updates and technical support for 1 year.
Features Listed:
- You can add any known information about the password to decrease the time needed to crack the password.
- Weak encryption passwords (Office 2003 and before) are able to be cracked instantly.
- Uses multiple cores for faster processing.
- You can choose to run the process in the background, or to assign it a higher priority.
Option 2: Word Key
Vendor: Passware
Price: Free (Demo); $39 Full Version
Download: http://www.lostpassword.com/downloads/passware-kit-basic-demo.msi
Description: Passware has password recovery solutions for many file types, as well as password reset utilities for local user accounts. If you need to crack a password on a Word file, and you do not want or need to crack or remove a password on an Excel file, PowerPoint, or any other Office file, then this is an ideal solution for you. Since it provides a simpler solution, the price is less.
Features Listed:
- Instant password access to change files if you don’t want to find out what the password was.
- It saves passwords found into it’s database, and tries them on other files the next time.
- Automatically saves it’s place in cracking attempts and can resume after a system crash.
- Integrates with Decryptum.com for advanced online password removal.
Option 3: Advanced Office Password Recovery
Vendor: Elcomsoft
Price: Free (Limited Demo); $49 Full (Home) Version
Download: http://www.elcomsoft.com/aopr.html
Description: This password reset utility is able to work with multiple file types, including Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access. Upgrading to the “Standard” edition allows even more file types, and access to Microsoft Project and Visio is able to be achieved with the more advanced “Professional” license.
Features Listed:
- Standard and Professional licenses utilize the processors on the video cards to speed up the cracking process.
- Supports all versions of Office, from version 2.0 through 2010.
- Exploits all known backdoors and tricks available to automatically disable the passwords in Office (all versions), so that more documents are able to be instantly recovered.
- Preliminary attack attempts to recover documents within the first 10 minutes.
- Instant removal of passwords is done through a different program, Advanced Office Password Breaker
What You Can Get For Your Money
Of the three password recover options listed above, all of them are from reputable vendors. If all you need is a Word password reset and/or recovered, you can get the most bang for your buck with Option 2, Passware’s Word Key. At $39, it’s a real value. It combines the instant removal on the previous versions of Word (2003 and earlier) with the dictionary and brute force attack methods used on the later versions of Word. As with all of the software listed here, there is technical support available.
If you need to include some more Office file types, Option 3, Elcomsoft’s Advanced Office Password Recovery, will allow you to perform password recovery on not only Word files, but on Excel files as well; however, this options doesn’t provide the best value.
For the same price ($49) you can get Passware’s Password Kit Basic which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook Express, Windows user accounts and web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome). Both Elcomsoft’s Advanced Office Password Recovery and Passware’s Password Kit Basic are the same price ($49) and include 1 year of updates and technical support.
Both Passware and Elcomsoft provide more advanced options for resetting passwords. Both companies have offerings for not only home users but also corporate users, system administration professionals, and forensic analysts. If you require more options in your password cracking arsenal, it is worth your while to shop both vendors and find the solution that best fits your needs and your budget.
Conclusion
If you find that you’re locked out of a Microsoft Word 2010 file (or any other Microsoft Word version), you will need to remove or reset the password before you can even open the file, or make changes to it.
There are several options that will remove your password, and several software products that can perform password cracking on Word 2010 files.
Of the programs that will do a password removal (the fastest way, but not always possible) and can also do password cracking methods, one provides all of the needed features for the best price: Passware’s Word Key. At only $39, it can be used on an unlimited amount of Word Files. It also interfaces with Decryptum.com, which is an online service that uses the power of the cloud to perform instant password removal of a file (Decryptum credits are used for that service, and those do cost about $25 each).