This has been BY FAR the worst upgrade in history for me.

I upgraded from a 2004 trial version, that worked fairly well, and all of a
sudden my account beginning balances are gone and all of my bills (not
online, just manual entries) are triplicated and some that I've marked as
paid in the checking registry are showing up in the bills section!!!

Augh!!!!!!

DW> I also wish these articles would touch on anything about M05 besides
DW> some of these "broken" issues. Let's talk about the ads.

you want CNET to talk about the ads? negatively?

DW> Let's talk about the dual mode chaos.
DW> Let's talk about the masking of the online vs. offline things in Money.

too complicated for a journalist. "Joe can't pay his bill" - that's about
right.

regards

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
news:#gM6X3zpEHA.324[at]TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl:

- quote -

I've run M98, M99, M00, M02, M04. None of the upgrades have been painless, which is
one reason I've slowed down my upgrades to every other year. Once I had to export all my
accounts as QIF files since Money wouldn't upgrade my file (even after trying all the repair
and super-repair tools). Every upgrade has screwed up something, either getting the
starting balance wrong, or duplicating or dropping some ancient transactions causing the
current balance to be incorrect, or forgetting about stock splits or mergers, etc. During
each upgrade I've spent hours matching transactions with printouts from the previous
version to get things to balance. M04 is doing fine for me so I plan to stick with it until
they yank the quote service.

I'm glad to see these problems are getting media attention. Sometimes a hit to the pocketbook is the only way to get the attention of some companies and this article will hopefully do that. As I said in the article I have been a loyal customer of MS for many years (who remembers Windows 1.0) and I'm sure they will come through but as I also said this has been one of the worst Money "upgrades" I have gone through.
Pierre Aterianus

"t" <t[at]anon> wrote in message news:uDebKDypEHA.868[at]TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
Users say Microsoft's Money is broke
Published: September 30, 2004, 10:44 AM PDT
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Complaints are mounting among Microsoft customers about glitches in the new version of the company's Money personal finance program, including errors that prevent customers from paying bills online.

Customers posting comments in a Microsoft community newsgroup and various product review pages say the new Money 2005 has made it difficult or impossible to access online bill paying services Microsoft runs through its MSN subsidiary.

Pierre Aterianus, an electrical engineer from Whitefish Bay, Wisc., said he followed Microsoft instructions to turn off MSN Bill Pay before installing Money 2005 and then reactivate the service, yet he still can't pay his credit card bill. Attempts to initiate payments either aren't sent or result in a "duplicate payment" error message, he said, and Microsoft support personnel haven't been able to provide a solution.

"I now basically have one week left to resolve this issue or be faced with either a bank overdraft fee from duplicate payments or a late fee from the credit card company for not paying my bill," Aterianus said. "This upgrade has been the worst I have ever experienced and the first to make me seriously consider switching back to Quicken," Intuit's market-leading personal finance software.

Steffen Urban, a systems administrator from Riverside, Calif., said he spent several hours in fruitless chats with Microsoft support personnel trying to get bill-paying services to work. When he finally was able to connect to the service, thanks to trial-and-error work of his own, he found every bill he had ever paid through Money recorded twice, causing the program to report a deficit of more than $2 million.

"Microsoft's response was terrible," Urban said. "Only through the newsgroup I found out that I am not the only customer with this problem. Just a little e-mail, stating that there is a problem, would have done the job."

AnnMarie Coe, Microsoft marketing manager for Money, said bill-paying problems have been isolated to a small section of customers upgrading from Money 2004. Microsoft support has worked with such customers individually to work through issues, she said.

"We implemented an upgrade process that has caused some confusion among a select group of users," Coe said. "They don't need to re-enroll (in MSN Bill Pay), they just have to turn it off temporarily, and I think that's where the confusion lies."

Money users were thrown for a loop earlier this year by a prolonged outage in accompanying MSN services

Other Money 2005 customers have reported problems accessing information from brokerages and other financial institutions that offer Internet downloads of account data. Further complaints have centered on corrupted data and other glitches in transferring account data from a previous version of Money to the new one.

Steve Conklan, a teacher from Centreville, Ala., said he had to replicate a few accounts by hand and eliminate duplicate accounts to make the shift from Money 2004 to 2005, a process he considered typical of previous Money upgrades.

"The truth is that Money never does a good job of converting last year's file," Conklan said. "There have been years when I have to export every account. It wasn't very hard, but I am fairly knowledgeable with computers, software and Money. For new users and casual users, however, Money can be a real pain."

A Microsoft representative said such problems are isolated incidents, and support personnel will work with customers on a case-by-case basis to address them.

The glitches come at an unfortunate time for Microsoft, undercutting any possibilities to cash in on customer dissatisfaction with Intuit's Quicken, the perennial leader in personal finance software. Quicken 2005 buyers have complained about changes in file format support that have prevented access to online banking functions in some cases,

At least Microsoft can't blame the Money glitches on black magic. The company made like an elevator and skipped over the number 13 with the program, going from version 12 with Money 2004 to version 14 with Money 2005. The change was intended to align Money versions with corresponding MSN services, according to a company statement, but several online wags have seen a little superstition at work.

http://news.com.com/Users+say+Micros...l?tag=nefd.top

Does this make me an online wag?

I'm a little shocked to read "The truth is that Money never does a good job
of converting last year's file. There have been years when I have to export
every account." Generally, I don't spend keystrokes defending the Money
team, but this is far from a problem that effects most users. It is a
problem for more user than it should be, but I see no indication that it is
still not a small minority problem. I've upgraded files to EVERY version of
Money ever shipped in the US and have never had a major problem with
upgrades. M98 was so bad, post upgrade, that I bypassed it. The jury is
still out on M05.

I also wish these articles would touch on anything about M05 besides some of
these "broken" issues. Let's talk about the ads. Let's talk about the dual
mode chaos. Let's talk about the masking of the online vs. offline things in
Money.

"t" <t[at]anon> wrote in message news:uDebKDypEHA.868[at]TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
Users say Microsoft's Money is broke
Published: September 30, 2004, 10:44 AM PDT
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Complaints are mounting among Microsoft customers about glitches in the new
version of the company's Money personal finance program, including errors
that prevent customers from paying bills online.
Customers posting comments in a Microsoft community newsgroup and various
product review pages say the new Money 2005 has made it difficult or
impossible to access online bill paying services Microsoft runs through its
MSN subsidiary.
Pierre Aterianus, an electrical engineer from Whitefish Bay, Wisc., said he
followed Microsoft instructions to turn off MSN Bill Pay before installing
Money 2005 and then reactivate the service, yet he still can't pay his
credit card bill. Attempts to initiate payments either aren't sent or result
in a "duplicate payment" error message, he said, and Microsoft support
personnel haven't been able to provide a solution.
"I now basically have one week left to resolve this issue or be faced with
either a bank overdraft fee from duplicate payments or a late fee from the
credit card company for not paying my bill," Aterianus said. "This upgrade
has been the worst I have ever experienced and the first to make me
seriously consider switching back to Quicken," Intuit's market-leading
personal finance software.
Steffen Urban, a systems administrator from Riverside, Calif., said he spent
several hours in fruitless chats with Microsoft support personnel trying to
get bill-paying services to work. When he finally was able to connect to the
service, thanks to trial-and-error work of his own, he found every bill he
had ever paid through Money recorded twice, causing the program to report a
deficit of more than $2 million.
"Microsoft's response was terrible," Urban said. "Only through the newsgroup
I found out that I am not the only customer with this problem. Just a little
e-mail, stating that there is a problem, would have done the job."
AnnMarie Coe, Microsoft marketing manager for Money, said bill-paying
problems have been isolated to a small section of customers upgrading from
Money 2004. Microsoft support has worked with such customers individually to
work through issues, she said.
"We implemented an upgrade process that has caused some confusion among a
select group of users," Coe said. "They don't need to re-enroll (in MSN Bill
Pay), they just have to turn it off temporarily, and I think that's where
the confusion lies."
Money users were thrown for a loop earlier this year by a prolonged outage
in accompanying MSN services
Other Money 2005 customers have reported problems accessing information from
brokerages and other financial institutions that offer Internet downloads of
account data. Further complaints have centered on corrupted data and other
glitches in transferring account data from a previous version of Money to
the new one.
Steve Conklan, a teacher from Centreville, Ala., said he had to replicate a
few accounts by hand and eliminate duplicate accounts to make the shift from
Money 2004 to 2005, a process he considered typical of previous Money
upgrades.
"The truth is that Money never does a good job of converting last year's
file," Conklan said. "There have been years when I have to export every
account. It wasn't very hard, but I am fairly knowledgeable with computers,
software and Money. For new users and casual users, however, Money can be a
real pain."
A Microsoft representative said such problems are isolated incidents, and
support personnel will work with customers on a case-by-case basis to
address them.
The glitches come at an unfortunate time for Microsoft, undercutting any
possibilities to cash in on customer dissatisfaction with Intuit's Quicken,
the perennial leader in personal finance software. Quicken 2005 buyers have
complained about changes in file format support that have prevented access
to online banking functions in some cases,
At least Microsoft can't blame the Money glitches on black magic. The
company made like an elevator and skipped over the number 13 with the
program, going from version 12 with Money 2004 to version 14 with Money
2005. The change was intended to align Money versions with corresponding MSN
services, according to a company statement, but several online wags have
seen a little superstition at work.
http://news.com.com/Users+say+Micros...l?tag=nefd.top

Users say Microsoft's Money is broke
Published: September 30, 2004, 10:44 AM PDT
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Complaints are mounting among Microsoft customers about glitches in the new version of the company's Money personal finance program, including errors that prevent customers from paying bills online.

Customers posting comments in a Microsoft community newsgroup and various product review pages say the new Money 2005 has made it difficult or impossible to access online bill paying services Microsoft runs through its MSN subsidiary.

Pierre Aterianus, an electrical engineer from Whitefish Bay, Wisc., said he followed Microsoft instructions to turn off MSN Bill Pay before installing Money 2005 and then reactivate the service, yet he still can't pay his credit card bill. Attempts to initiate payments either aren't sent or result in a "duplicate payment" error message, he said, and Microsoft support personnel haven't been able to provide a solution.

"I now basically have one week left to resolve this issue or be faced with either a bank overdraft fee from duplicate payments or a late fee from the credit card company for not paying my bill," Aterianus said. "This upgrade has been the worst I have ever experienced and the first to make me seriously consider switching back to Quicken," Intuit's market-leading personal finance software.

Steffen Urban, a systems administrator from Riverside, Calif., said he spent several hours in fruitless chats with Microsoft support personnel trying to get bill-paying services to work. When he finally was able to connect to the service, thanks to trial-and-error work of his own, he found every bill he had ever paid through Money recorded twice, causing the program to report a deficit of more than $2 million.

"Microsoft's response was terrible," Urban said. "Only through the newsgroup I found out that I am not the only customer with this problem. Just a little e-mail, stating that there is a problem, would have done the job."

AnnMarie Coe, Microsoft marketing manager for Money, said bill-paying problems have been isolated to a small section of customers upgrading from Money 2004. Microsoft support has worked with such customers individually to work through issues, she said.

"We implemented an upgrade process that has caused some confusion among a select group of users," Coe said. "They don't need to re-enroll (in MSN Bill Pay), they just have to turn it off temporarily, and I think that's where the confusion lies."

Money users were thrown for a loop earlier this year by a prolonged outage in accompanying MSN services

Other Money 2005 customers have reported problems accessing information from brokerages and other financial institutions that offer Internet downloads of account data. Further complaints have centered on corrupted data and other glitches in transferring account data from a previous version of Money to the new one.

Steve Conklan, a teacher from Centreville, Ala., said he had to replicate a few accounts by hand and eliminate duplicate accounts to make the shift from Money 2004 to 2005, a process he considered typical of previous Money upgrades.

"The truth is that Money never does a good job of converting last year's file," Conklan said. "There have been years when I have to export every account. It wasn't very hard, but I am fairly knowledgeable with computers, software and Money. For new users and casual users, however, Money can be a real pain."

A Microsoft representative said such problems are isolated incidents, and support personnel will work with customers on a case-by-case basis to address them.

The glitches come at an unfortunate time for Microsoft, undercutting any possibilities to cash in on customer dissatisfaction with Intuit's Quicken, the perennial leader in personal finance software. Quicken 2005 buyers have complained about changes in file format support that have prevented access to online banking functions in some cases,

At least Microsoft can't blame the Money glitches on black magic. The company made like an elevator and skipped over the number 13 with the program, going from version 12 with Money 2004 to version 14 with Money 2005. The change was intended to align Money versions with corresponding MSN services, according to a company statement, but several online wags have seen a little superstition at work.

http://news.com.com/Users+say+Micros...l?tag=nefd.top