Now that we've actually shipped SP2, some of you may be curious about how to use the shiny new encryption. Here's the registry settings:
Registry keys
Base keys (also corresponding Policy keys)
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\<appname>\Security\Crypto
Name
Type
Default
Description
CompatMode
DWORD
0
Controls encrypted database compatibility:
Context
String
Restrict encryption parameters to those defined in this CNG context
CipherAlgorithm
Cipher algorithm to use, optional, CNG string
CipherKeyBits
Number of bits to use when creating the cipher key, rounded down to a multiple of 8, optional
CipherChaining
Cipher chaining mode to use, optional, CNG string
HashAlgorithm
Hash algorithm to use, optional, CNG string
RngAlgorithm
Random number generator algorithm to use, optional, CNG string
SaltBytes
16
Bytes of salt to use, optional
PasswordSpinCount
100000
Number of times to spin (e.g. rehash) the password verifier, optional
NewKeyOnPwdChange
1
If non-zero, a new intermediate key is generated when the password is changed. This will cause any extra key encryptors to be removed on save.
Many thanks to my tester for giving me the information in such a nicely formatted and well documented table. Once you have Office 2010 Technical Preview available to you, the same settings should work there as well. Many more thanks to Dan Jump for carefully implementing our design. Note that if you use the new format, then the converter for Office 2003 and earlier won't be able to read them until we update the converters to understand the new encryption.