Is this Beta?

Microsoft deservedly gets dinged for its buggy software and practices.  But, Intuit is really trying to dethrone Bill Gate’s alma mater.

After buying the newest version of Quicken Home and Office with its free add-ons and a reduced-price Home Inventory module, I can report: 

  • The main Quicken Home and Office seems okay.
  • When I went to register Quicken Legal Pro 2008, the web page refused. Instead it told me that support for the product expired December 31, 2008. So, this free module was already out-of-date when I bought the package.
  • The Home Inventory program is a mess.
    • On start-up HI asks if you want to convert the data files from earlier versions. I did. HI does something, but doesn’t open the old file. After going on line and looking at the FAQ, it turns out that after the program converts the old data file, you have to find the file on your disk, rename it, and manually open it.  Why this is not part of the automated conversion process is left to the imagination of the [frustrated] user.
    • When you check for updates to the HI program, you get an error message saying that the updates failed to download. Another FAQ says that this message really means that there were no updates to download. 
    • The feature to transfer to Quicken the data entered in the Home Inventory program simply doesn’t work. Yet another FAQ says that this bug is a known issue for which there currently is no solution or workaround.

The 1/2 price sale for the basic product was still a good deal. But, the rest?

I am embarrassed for software developers everywhere.

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3 Responses to Is this Beta?

  1. excessor says:

    Intuit has been doing things like this for quite a while. I stopped using their products when my home machine became a Mac and I have that old familiar desire to get organized but I’m just not sure that Quicken is it for me.

    I’m not a fan of web applications and when Quicken switched from being a resident application to a web-based one, a lot of functions didn’t work as they had before. What a pain in the ass.

    • guyinsf says:

      I got frustrated with Quicken when I switched to Mac and discovered that their Mac product wasn’t even remotely the same as the Windows one. Eventually I migrated to Moneydance, and I’ve been very happy with their software, service, and community plug-in support.

      Moneydance also has a Windows product, tho that’s a little misleading. They have one product, and it runs on both Windows and OS X. (I think it runs in Python or something like that.) If you should choose to give Moneydance a try, note that when I converted 4ish years ago that the Quicken file importer wasn’t perfect (tho it might be better now), and I had to spend a half a day or so sorting out why my balances weren’t the same pre- and post-import. That said, I’ve never regretted the time spent since then.

  2. allanh says:

    I’ve been using Quicken for many years, and I upgrade it perhaps every4 or 5 years. In general, I don’t use the program for anything more than I did 15 years ago; I use it to balance my checkbook. That’s it. I dont track portfolios, or keep a home inventory, or write my own wills.

    I just want to balance my goddamn checkbook.

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