Thanks for your note. I find it impressive that Money 2004 will open
and import the Money 3.0 file. I to have found that the removal of
options and the clutter of new "features" has led to a program that is
difficult to operate in the simplest of modes like the original concept.
The BLOG that someone posted where the current developers talk about
how the goal is to keep the user on the internet and sell him some other
service appears applicable. I actually started tracking every penny
using a Fortran based program I wrote in the 60's. I switched to a
DBASE program in the early 80's and finally to Simple Money 1.0 which
worked prior to switching to Money 3.0. I liked 3.0 but unfortunately I
have upgraded each version since. Each time I have seen massive growth
in data base, slower operation, and more features I do not use. I have
found that by turning off the budgeting capabilities that it speeds up
the system. Many of the features you were looking for I have found how
to do with reports or reports and export to Excel spreadsheets. But I
liked the original simple version best.

Art McClinton

ps - developers want to build a new version and the company wants to
sell a new version so each year they must find something to add. But
for some reason the bugs or features only desired by a perceived small
group of users remain.

Doug Klunder wrote:
- quote -

Money 3.0 is well out of support now. Perhaps you could try to open the file
in the latest version (download a trial), then at least you'll be able to
export the data as QIF (try it on another machine if you can).

--
Glyn Simpson, Microsoft MVP - Money
http://money.mvps.org

Check http://money.mvps.org/faq for tips and fixes for MS Money. To send
Microsoft your product wishes see http://money.mvps.org/wishes.aspx

I do not respond to any unsolicited email regarding Money

"Bente" <Bente[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:49C7D1ED-27E6-4ACD-9538-584B95DE0E37[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Hello Doug,
I'm replying to you because you at least know about the early versions and
Microsoft can't help me.
The problem: I can't get into my Money (I believe it's 2.0.0.0) and they
can't help me.
I have used this program since forever and it serves me just fine for my
checkbook, it's nice and easy to read and not at all cluttered as you refer
to in the newer versions. When I switched computers and programs in early
2002 to XP I just copied the program and it worked just fine except for the
following message:

16 bit windows subsystem
C:\Progra~1\Symantec\s32EVNT1.DLL. An installable Virtual Device Driver
failed Dll initialization. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application.

If I chose ignore it would open. Oh, and the sound didn't work either but
who needs it. I also would get that weird error in the reconcile bank
statement area, but I just deleted that. So for the past 3 years it has
worked just fine for me in XP so late as the beginning of this week. Then
suddenly yesterday it came up with a second 16 bit windows subsystem box with
the following message in it:

C:\Windows\System32\Autoexec.NT. The system file is not suitable for running
MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the
application.

This time neither Close nor Ignore does the trick, I simply can't get in. I
have run Spybot, Ad Aware and checked for viruses with no luck. I'm not
computer savvy enough to fix this one. I will upgrade if I have to but I sure
would like to rescue my data as I need it for our small business. And no, I
didn't back up the data. HMMMmmm.

Hope you can help.


"Doug Klunder" wrote:

- quote -

I don't remember Money 3.0 all that fondly, and there are ways around many,
but certainly not all, of the issue you cite with M04.

Too bad you didn't try M05. I think the diatribe would have been about 10x
longer...

"Doug Klunder" <klunder[at]comcast.net> wrote in message
news:wHwvd.257840$R05.114819[at]attbi_s53...
- quote -

What Have They Done To My Program?!?!
by Doug Klunder

[If you just want a possible fix to the ALC<402c> problem, skip to the
bottom -- I'm going to rant first.]

First, an introduction. I started using Microsoft Money on an almost daily
basis over 14 years ago. Yes, that's well before Money 1.0 was released, or
even in beta. I was the technical lead for the development of both Money 1.0
and Money 2.0, and was a strong believer in the theory that developers
should actually use their own products -- it's a strong incentive to make
useful features and fix bugs when it's going to affect you personally. So I
will admit to a personal bias towards the early versions of Money -- but I
think the bias is more than justified by looking at more recent versions.

I used Money 1.0 prerelease, continued its use after release, and upgraded
to Money 2.0 (probably in the early stages of development well before
release, though I don't remember exactly when). I left Microsoft in 1992
after the release of Money 2.0, so I didn't upgrade to Money 3.0 until after
its release. I have been using Money 3.0 ever since. And I'm compulsive
enough that I enter essentially every penny that I spend. I wouldn't be
surprised if I'm the only person (short of a tester) that has actually
reached the limit on number of transactions in a file -- it took me close to
10 years of almost daily use to hit that limit; my Money data file is over 3
MB.

I looked at upgrading to Money 95 when it came out, but saw that some key
features had been removed, and decided against the "upgrade". I kept
worrying that one day I would be forced to upgrade, but Money 3.0 --
although developed for Win 3.1 -- continued to run just fine on Win 95 and
Win 98. A couple of months ago, however, I got a new computer, with Win XP
on it.

Unfortunately, Money 3.0 has some problems with XP. For example, bringing up
the Investment Summary window often crashes Money, as does trying to change
loan information. I haven't had any luck using a Money file over a network;
it frequently crashes or hangs. Cascading menus don't automatically open
(you need to click on the menu item); the account dropdown doesn't open in
the Account Register window when viewing multiple accounts.

And, perhaps most noticeably, many dialog boxes (including Reconcile) come
up with ALC<402c> or something similar appearing in some of the edit boxes.
The worst situation is if you enter a value for Service Charge or Interest
when reconciling an account, and then Postpone the reconciliation. When you
try to resume reconciling, the dialog has ALC<402c> in the edit boxes,
they're grayed so you can't change them, and when you try to Continue, Money
complains about an improper value -- in other words, you're stuck. (See
below for a fix to this.)

Although I can work around most of these problems, it got me to thinking
that I should maybe break down and upgrade to a modern version of Money.
Surely the valuable features removed in Money 95 had been restored in the
intervening decade. So I gave it a shot last night, and fired up Money 2004.
Surprisingly, it was able to convert my Money 3.0 file, even though it was
many versions later.

That was the last good news. The look of the screens is incredibly
cluttered, and with ads on top of the clutter. I could do without Money
literally talking to me. And the supposedly helpful information Money gave
me was just plain worthless, incorrect, and/or annoying. But more
importantly, some very basic functions that I use all the time in Money 3.0
simply don't exist in Money 2004. For example, you're very limited in the
types of views available for the register. In Money 3.0, you can view
multiple accounts mixed together -- either all accounts or a subset. You can
also choose to view only transactions in a specific category. For that
matter, you can be very specific -- show only transactions from accounts A
and B, with Category C or D, entered between September and October, that
have amounts greater than $100, for example. I use this type of view all the
time -- it can be used to find a specific transaction, or have the same
effect as generating a mini-report, or enable quickly changing the accounts
or categories of a set of transactions, etc. But not in Money 2004...

The reports are equally screwed up, and limited in customization
possibilities. For example, I like to view my budget in several separate
reports, divided up by categories for some personal preferences for how I
interpret budget numbers. (As an example, I interpret my food budget, which
happens on a regular basis, quite a bit differently than my computer budget,
which comes in big chunks but only every few years.) Money 2004 has no way
to do this. You have to see all categories in each report. And it gives no
subtotals by category, but instead only by "category group" (none of which
exist in an upgraded file). This defeats the whole purpose of subcategories!
Call me weird, but I'm interested in seeing not just how I'm doing on
groceries individually and on dining out individually, but also on my total
for food, since the two are related (the more I eat out the less I spend on
groceries).

On Investment Performance reports, Money 2004 seems to think that I'm still
interested in stocks I sold a decade ago. If I want to see my performance
last month, it includes all stocks I've ever owned in that account, showing
a starting and ending balance of 0, but with Buy, Sell, and Income from
times way back when, not last month. Why? Beats me -- and it sure didn't
happen back in Money 3.0.

Those three things by themselves were enough to convince me not to upgrade.
Sure, there are a few handy features (such as automatic download of stock
quotes), but it's not worth it. I would rather work around the problems in
Money 3.0 -- which are not in my high frequency usage -- than give up basic
features that I depend on.

How did this happen? Do none of the current developers actually use the
program for their personal finances? Are they just so deficient in
imagination that they can't imagine how these features would be used? Did
they even look at older versions of Money and evaluate the features that
were removed? I just don't get it... but I sure understand why Money hasn't
made significant inroads into Quicken's market share. I haven't looked at
Quicken in years, and wasn't that impressed way back when, but it's hard to
believe Quicken is more deficient in basic account handling than Money 2004
is.

The final insult came after I exited the program and took a look at the data
file that Money 2004 had converted. My Money 3.0 file is roughly 3.5 MB --
huge for Money 3.0 standards, but still manageable. The exact same data,
once converted by Money 2004 was now over 40 MB!! What the heck is Money
2004 doing that requires 10 times as much space as Money 3.0 to handle the
same data?!?!

It is sad to see a program that I worked so hard on be degraded to this
extent. Aren't things supposed to get better, not worse?

Enough for my diatribe. I now offer my thoughts on the ALC<402c> issue. I
honestly don't remember where this came from (it's been over a decade, after
all), but my guess is that this was some kind of code that was interpreted
by the dialog processing code, perhaps to specify formatting of the edit
box, or set the default value, or something. The dialog processing code must
have changed between Windows 3.1 and Win XP (not surprising). Or perhaps
it's some other now-obsolete feature. At any rate, the key is to get rid of
the ALC codes. This involves editing the application file, msmoney.exe, and
replacing the ALC codes with spaces. The following process seemed to work
for me, but I obviously can't guarantee it. And since you're patching the
application file, the risk is certainly there to harm things. Accordingly,
your first step should be to copy msmoney.exe and save the copy.

The next step is to open a command prompt window (Start / Programs /
Accessories / Command Prompt). Yes, we're going to use an old DOS program to
edit the file. Change to the directory/folder where Money resides (e.g., "cd
\msmoney"). Now type "edit /54321 msmoney.exe" (the /54321 could use another
number, but I happen to know this number works to find all instances of the
ALC codes). This brings up a DOS editor, and will show all kinds of funny
graphic characters corresponding to the binary data in the application file.
Don't bother looking at it or scrolling; we're just going to run a couple of
commands and exit. Run Search/Replace; in the dialog enter "ALC<402c> " in
the Find What field, and " " in the Replace With field (of course,
don't enter the quote marks). That's 9 spaces -- make sure you use exactly
that number of spaces, so you're neither expanding nor contracting the file.
Then click Replace All, and click OK when it says complete. Repeat, entering
"ALC<4024> " and then repeat again with "ALC<411c> ". Then run File/Exit, and
click Yes to save the edited file. At this point, you should have a new
msmoney.exe file which is exactly the same size as your saved copy; for me,
that size is 1,303,776 bytes. And this new version of Money seems to work
for me; instead of the ALC codes, it defaults some dialog values to spaces,
which works fine. But I can't guarantee the results for you.

If anybody has suggestions to get around the other problems -- especially
the crashing over a network -- I'd love to hear them.

And for those of you who have only been introduced to Money with Money 95 or
a later version, you might consider checking out Money 3.0. Sure, it's
missing a lot of the newer online features, but it's a lot more useful for
basic account management...

Doug