Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Using Password Recovery Software for MS Office

By Albert Von McZeally Albert Michael McZeally Alvin McZeally Alice McZeally

If you have a computer and are connected to the Internet then your computer is in danger of having files stolen. While most of the files you have may be innocuous, if there is any personal information in them such as birthdays, social insurance numbers or financial data then you will want to make sure this information is protect from prying eyes. The easiest way to do this is to password protect your documents.

Anyone who keeps financial information such as credit card or bank account numbers should ensure they password protect their documents. Additionally, if you work in an office and handle sensitive information about your company or any of your clients these documents should be protected as well. Doing so can save you a lot of trouble should the files fall into the wrong hands.

Now that we have covered how to keep your documents safe, what happens if you lose or forget the passwords? Obviously you dont want to use the same password on every document " if someone ever guessed the password then all of your files would be at risk. At the same time using a different password every time will make it difficult to remember. Odds are at some point in time you are going to lose a password and need to access your files.

This is where you need a password recovery tool. There are several different types of software available that can help you get into your files. While some of them are free, you will have much better success with a licensed version of password recovery software as they offer more options and have more streamlined recovery algorithms.

Password recover software use several different methods in order to guess the right password for a file. One of these methods is to go through the dictionary and try every word in it. If you know that you always use a number or symbol in the password you can customize the search to include them.

The second method is to go through the dictionary systematically and again try to hit on the right word. Most programs will allow you to customize your search and add numbers or symbols within the password if you know that is how you structured it. If neither method has results, then the software can try to disable the password protection on the file itself instead of trying to find the password.

While there are many software programs offered for free, most people will have little success in getting these programs to access their files. Investing a few dollars will get you a much more streamlined program that will give you a much better chance of accessing your file, and in less time.

Once you have recovered your files, you may want to consider an alternate method keeping track of your passwords so you dont forget them. If you have a mobile or PDA and you can password protect it, then it may be a good place to keep keys to your important files. That way your passwords are close by, but not linked to your computer.

Password protecting your file can be a pain yes but think of the alternative. The next time you are password protecting your MS Office file which include: word, excel, outlook, powerpoint, etc you think if creating a separate secure password protected file to store all your passwords in. This way you can open them all with the simple use of one password. - 16003

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