Excel Document Password Issues

I saved an Excel document about 7 months ago and protected it with a password since I was living with roomies. I can't for the life of me remember what the stupid password is. When I click on the file, I am immediately prompted to enter a password. I have tried some freeware - no luck. I tried opening it in another program like Power Point (which some site directed me to do) - no luck. Is there any hope?

This is a repost. I have looked everywhere and can't seem to find a solution. I know I would know the password if I was able to see a few characters, which one freeware program promised to provide.... but that didn't work either. I'm the queen of hiding stuff from myself! lol.

 

the only thing i've ever found on the net for stuff like that is brute force type things, where you let a program just go, for days and months if needed and it tries every combination of letters and numbers till it figures out the password. Not sure if there's really any other way. a quick search on google and i found software that isn't free, but says it will show you the first 2 characters. Probably the one you already tried. Not sure if I should post the link tho.

 

Thanks... I have already tried that. I appreciate the info.