Save Visio as Protected File???

Started by stormingnorman, January 27, 2009, 04:16:11 PM

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stormingnorman

Hi there,

does anyone know how to save a visio .VSD as a protected file with a password? I have some stuff I'm working on on company servers and I want to make sure that I'm the only one who can change the Visio file.
Thanks and cheers

Norman

Visio Guy

Hi General,

I'm not really a network/admin kind of guy, but can't you set privileges for your Visio files or the directory where they are located? That might be the 'easiest' way to do what you need. :)

There is an obscure, non-password-protected way to kind-of protect your document.

First, you protect all shapes from say, selection. (See: Format > Protection dialog...)

Then you protect the document, so that the shapes really are protected against selection. You do that like this:

1. On the View menu, click Drawing Explorer Window.
2. In the Drawing Explorer window, right-click the name of the drawing, and then click Protect Document.
3. In the Protect Document window, select the Shapes check box, and then click OK.

But you'd have to protect/unprotect the document this every time you wanted to edit it. Pain in the butt.

Also, FYI: the VBA project in every Visio document can be password protected, but that's probably not what you need.
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stormingnorman

hmmmm, sounds a little too complicated. The thing is: In i.e. Excel it's easily possible to password write protect a document. If I want to edit it and save the changes I'm the only one who can edit it. Our server privileges are all set up so that only the people who should be are actually allowed to snoop around in the folders they have business in BUT since I only trust people as far as I can toss them (which is not too far) I'd prefer to be the only one allowed to change the concerned files, which are clearly my business and no one else's.

Paul Herber

What about using one of the various free file encryptors?

Or if nobody else knows that it's a Visio file just change its extension so that for other users it'll open by default in the wrong application, if you change it to .mvd (for my visio document) who will know?
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Visio Guy

Another idea:

If your company is using SharePoint, you might be more easily able to put it in a storman-norman-editable-only library somehow...
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LargeMike

I've been known to put a Visio file into a Word document as an object, then protect the Word document as a workaround.

Visio Guy

I see your embedded Word and raise you a password protected .zip file.

:)
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wapperdude

Well, if you're going to the trouble of embedding the file in another application, why don't you just convert to PDF for the general viewing, and keep the original file hidden? 

If you have administrator rights, can you set the file attributes to read only?

You could select all objects and assign them to a layer, then lock the layer.  But this is only a hinderance and not a solution.

Visio 2019 Pro


Nikolay

I have heard about the solution for visio from the http://liquidmachines.com
This company was mentioned as an ultimate protection provider for Visio files several times at the microsoft.public.visio.developer newsgroup..

Their technique is interception of the file save/load process, and encryption/decryption visio files "on the fly" (at least this is what I believe it is).
Additionally, their solution seem to provide some additional benefits like protected "copy-paste" operation, and other non-trivial stuff.

But unfortunately we were unable to contact this company; they just ignore emails & phone calls... (maybe they fall into some sort of a crisis?  ???)
Does anybody know, are they still alive?

Also, there no "real thing" available to download on their site -
at least I was unable to find anything but "shiny pebbles" (flash demos, I mean :D)