The Problem (Q-score 9, ranked #58th of 303 in the Excel VBA archive)
The scenario as originally posted in 2010
I want to stop others from editing the cell contents in my excel sheet using VBA. Is it possible to do this?
Why this Range / Worksheet targeting trips people up
The question centers on reaching a specific cell, range, or workbook object. In Excel VBA, this is the #1 source of failures after activation events: every property (.Value, .Formula, .Address) behaves differently depending on whether the parent Workbook is explicit or implicit.
The Verified Solution — strong answer (top 25 %%) (+18)
Verbal answer — walkthrough without a code block
Note: the verified answer is a prose walkthrough. If you need a runnable sample, check Excel VBA entries ranked in the top 10 of the same archive.
You can first choose which cells you don’t want to be protected (to be user-editable) by setting the Locked status of them to False:
Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("B2:C3").Locked = False
Then, you can protect the sheet, and all the other cells will be protected.
The code to do this, and still allow your VBA code to modify the cells is:
Worksheets("Sheet1").Protect UserInterfaceOnly:=True
or
Call Worksheets("Sheet1").Protect(UserInterfaceOnly:=True)
When to Use It — vintage (14+ years old, pre-2013)
Ranked #58th in its category — specialized fit
This pattern sits in the 95% tail relative to the top answer. Reach for it when your scenario closely matches the question title; otherwise browse the Excel VBA archive for a higher-consensus alternative.
What changed between 2010 and 2026
The answer is 16 years old. The Excel VBA object model has been stable across Office 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 365, and 2024/2026 LTSC, so the pattern still compiles. Changes that might affect you: 64-bit API declarations (use PtrSafe), blocked macros in downloaded files (Mark-of-the-Web), and the shift toward Office Scripts for web-first workflows.