OFF2000: "This Workbook (Document) Has Been Password Protected" When You Open Workbook or Document

When you open a password-protected Microsoft Excel workbook on a computer with French regional settings, you receive the following error message: When you open a password-protected Word document on a computer with French regional settings, you receive the following error message:

The Excel workbook or Word document was saved on a computer with U.S. regional settings and RC4 encryption.

To resolve this problem, obtain the Word 2000 Update: April 25, 2002. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.



This problem was first corrected in the Word 2000 Update: April 25, 2002.

Before 2 June 2000, the laws of France did not allow documents to be encrypted by using the RC4 encryption scheme, which Word and Excel normally use when files are saved with password protection. Now Excel workbooks and Word documents can be encrypted by using the RC4-40 stream cipher.

After applying the Excel and Word hotfixes, users with French locale settings can do the following:

• Open an existing RC4-40 encrypted workbook or document.
• Open an existing RC4-40 encrypted workbook or document, and save it with weak encryption.
• Save a new workbook or document with weak encryption.
• Save an existing workbook or document with weak encryption.