Versions: 95, 97

Ever forgotten the database-level password of your db? Annoying, isn't it? Almost as annoying as discovering that some so-called consultants make money charging you to recover the password! DBPC saves you this money, for Jet 3.x/3.5x databases at least. It works on the basis that, in these versions, the database-level password is always stored in the same place in the file header and encrypted with the same algorithm. A serious flaw, I'm sure you'll agree, and one that has been corrected in Jet 4. Anyway, this little tool reads the database header and decrypts the database-level password for you. It's a tiny little program - the download is only big because it includes the VB6 run-time library. Oh yes, and it's freeware too, so you can stop worrying about paying consultants fees for this kind of work...

You should also be aware that this doesn't decrypt user-level passwords. Check out the password recovery service for a cheap and easy way of retrieving lost passwords for user-level protected databases (you just need to send the MDW file to the service and they'll do the rest).

Note regarding usage

Please bear in mind that malicious use of this utility to gain unauthorised access to a database may be unlawful and/or lead to some form of disciplinary action against you.

Screenshot

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Download

Click here  to begin download (41KB)

You'll need unzipping software for this download, such as WinZip.