At this point, I'll believe the fix when I've opened my
Money file but won't speculate until then.

I would be interested in the outcome of a class action as
well. Ballmer's wrist must be getting sore from signing
all those checks by now...

- quote -

As noted elsewhere, this is an interesting situation for many of the reasons
you cite. I don't think MS will hang anybody out to dry on this without a
fix. But I sure would love to see what happened with your class action
lawsuit anyway.

"Mike" <anonymous[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6a2b01c47592$937b68b0$a401280a[at]phx.gbl...
- quote -

I was kind of understanding your point until you
said: "Everybody who uses Money has responsibility for
THEIR DATA."

When I signed up for PASSPORT I thought - Hey even if I
can't logon online, I can logon offline so how could I be
harmed."

This little bug has completely inhihibited my ability to
access all my financial date because:

1. I can not use the passport online service. (I don't
really care that much because I'm going to turn it off
anyway)
2. Something online has disabled/locked out/corrupted the
password in my local software completely so that I
have "no access" to any of my information.
3. I can't restore my backup, which has the same problem!

To me this is an unimagineable blunder. I just hope for a
fix and if they hang me out to dry without a fix, I'm
going to call the attorney who files the first class
action lawsuit and beg to be the lead plaintiff.

- quote -

So am I. I read the matchbook cover about Big Bucks In Software also.
Comments.

"Lurker Steve" <lurkersteve[at]evilemail.com> wrote in message
news:2%7Oc.18211$Nu4.6826[at]nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
- quote -

You have QA watching over adminstrative changes to your server environment?
What criteria are they watching to? Do you have a release or SRB function or
similar for every adminstrative change, say, an IP address in a DNS table or
a printer property or something like that? What about, say, a user's
properties? A password reset?

- quote -

But there was no "release", apparently, of controlled code or data. This
was, apparently, some system admin mistake at root.

- quote -

You raise an interesting point. What process controls exist over
"environmental" administrative changes? This is probably something that we
all have issues with. For my deployed systems, I can tell you how lots of
bits were supposed to be at deployment. (Even that's hard. Ever tried to
configure, definitively to the bit, a Windows or UNIX installation of even
moderate complexity?) Once operational, do I have any vehicle to
manage/control administrative settings and modifications? No. Do you? If you
answer yes, please identify how much complexity and what dynamic
characteristics apply to this environment?

I'm a professional software engineer. Comments...

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:ubIXvlWdEHA.3076[at]TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Except many users (perhaps even the majority?) have been affected. That's
not a sneak path. That's a major bug that should have been caught by QA.

This is the equivalent of (for a web server) being down for a few days
because of an errant release.

I blame Microsoft QA before anyone else. They were the ones responsible for
catching this.

This was not, apparently, a "change" in the sense of modifying software
code. It was an administrative change in the server environment. These
happen all day, every day, in businesses big and small. And some of them
don't work out as planned. Many of these are impossible to thoroughly test
short of going live. Many of these are also so obviously innocuous that you
don't even try--and then you discover sneak path #4,519 you didn't recognize
in advance and you're hosed as are your users. I've worked in software
development and systems management for decades. S*** happens. Given your
long experience in software development, I'm sure you've been witness to
some of these kinds of cases by now.

I'd suspect that you would find that the EULA and lots of other shrink-wrap
and click-through licenses have completely shielded them from liability for
this kind of problem. But keep us posted on how far you get. Know what I
mean?

Everybody who uses Money has responsibility for THEIR DATA. If you are
making ANY assumptions that you are not prepared to eat the consequences
of--like, say, assuming that all of these online linkages will never cause
problems or have service outages--woe is you. That's not to defend MS, nor
to say that they haven't oversold some of these features without making
clear their limitations and exposures, nor to say that I think it acceptable
that they've launched, inadvertently, DoS attacks on Money users twice in
the last two months.

"Brian" <anonymous[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:65b101c47560$cff49780$a401280a[at]phx.gbl...
- quote -

I've worked in software development for decades. It's
unfathomable that MS would put a change into place
without thorough testing. The LIABILITY of doing this in
such a way that it impacts the financial transactions of
MILLIONS of people adds up to a lot of $$$ very quickly.

Know what I mean?