GeezerVison

User Reviews

• nnako Posted 2018-01-02

  5 out of 5 stars

  Thanks. With the ideas from @azambler, I was able to use the mechanism in quite a few projects. Unfortunately though, the mechanism still does not run stable enough to be really used for "production". There is always the possibility of EXCEL stopping its work while converting a workbook. Sometimes a single change of value on a sheet causes the mechanism to break. Sometimes, removing parts of the code and re-inserting it in some way solves the problem, temporarily, until some other effect breaks the mechanism again. Here is what I have observed looking into the XLSM (ZIP container) of a workbook. Always, when the workbook gets "un-obfuscatable", meaning that the obfuscation mechanism causes EXCEL to crash, there is a strange increase of about 7kB size in the VBA code portion of the XLSM found in /xl/vbaProject.bin . As I have not been able to decipher the binary contents, I don't know, what exactly gets wrong, here. Otherwise this would be a further hint on the way to a stable workaround, I think.
• azambler Edited 2015-08-05

  5 out of 5 stars

  My VBA project is quite large, 32 modules, and Invisible Basic would consistently crash Excel with the dreaded VBA Run-time error -214724809 (80070057). I eventually got it to work for a while by using vbc.CodeModule.ReplaceLine instead of vbc.CodeModule.InsertLines in the read_component_code sub. Move the DeleteLines operation to after the loop, like this: x = vbc.CodeModule.CountOfLines If x > iLine - 1 Then vbc.CodeModule.DeleteLines startLine:=iLine, Count:=x - iLine + 1 It worked great for a while but on a different build I got the same run-time error. I eventually fixed it by removing any WithEvents from declarations. After obfuscation I put them back manually. Note, I don't use the addin, I run it as regular vba. A great utility, thank you John C. Gunther. PS I also wrap the spreadsheet in XLS Padlock which has many security features for Excel. Andrew MacLean Algorithm Science

  1 user found this review helpful.
• bashishtha Posted 2014-06-18

  4 out of 5 stars

  Simple interface & just works as specified. 1. Following small change for excel version 2010 can be done to save .xlsm file. 'In sub ib_save_invisibly_as() the filefilter is to be modified as below to save file in excel 2010 version as .xlsm FileFilter:="Microsoft Excel Workbook (*.xls),*.xls,Microsoft Excel Macro Workbook (*.xlsm),*.xlsm", _ Title:="Select file into which workbook will be saved invisibly") 2. Issue to resolve: The '.Onaction = "SubName"' is not changed by the code as it is a string. Hence on obfuscation, the Macro "SubName" is not found on clicking the associated button in Add-in menu. If for '.Onaction' also the string is changes to the matching 'SubName', then for Add-ins it will work out-of-the-box. Currently all '.OnAction' parameter has to be changed as per the changed SubName after VBA code obfuscation .

  1 user found this review helpful.
• talorthain Edited 2014-07-02

  5 out of 5 stars

  I have changed my rating, because of the enhancements implemented by one of the other reviewers. It covers the majority of requirements and has indeed improved the protection level.
• chinner43 Posted 2013-07-30

  5 out of 5 stars

  Maybe not as secure as other obfuscators but works seamlessly and adds that next level of deterrence that may be enough to thwart a copier.