Protect VBA Excel from saving by others

Question

I am trying to protect my Excel VBA from saving by others who are also using my macro. I tried using the below code but it is not working. I want to prevent others from saving the VBA Excel before closing as well as while using Ctrl + S for saving.

Sub Workbook_BeforeSave(ByVal SaveAsUI As Boolean, Cancel As Boolean)
    If Not SaveAsUI Then
        Cancel = True
        MsgBox "You cannot save this workbook"
    End If
End Sub

Answer 1

I'm using Excel 2019 and I cannot reproduce your issue. The code works as expected. If I press Save I get the message box and it does not save. If I close the workbook, it asks me if I want to save, if I press Save I again get the message box and it does not save.

But you can try to add a Workbook_BeforeClose event with a ThisWorkbook.Saved = True to make VBA believe the workbook was already saved. This prevents the message box when closing the workbook, that asks if you want to save or not.

Option Explicit

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean)
    ThisWorkbook.Saved = True
End Sub

Sub Workbook_BeforeSave(ByVal SaveAsUI As Boolean, Cancel As Boolean)
    If Not SaveAsUI Then
        Cancel = True
        MsgBox "You cannot save this workbook"
    End If
End Sub