If you use Microsoft Money to manage your finances, you should know that Microsoft will no longer be selling MS Money after June 30th, 2009. From the Microsoft product page:
With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed. After suspending annual updates of Money Plus in 2008, Microsoft is announcing today that we will no longer offer Microsoft Money Plus for purchase after June 30, 2009.
But more importantly, your online services will also be discontinued soon. This means stock and mutual fund quotes, tax rate updates, and banking services like their billpay.
For Money Plus Deluxe, Premium and Home & Business customers, online services expire two years after initial activation or Jan. 31, 2011, whichever is earlier; for Money Plus Essentials it is one year after activation or Jan. 31, 2011, whichever is earlier. You can verify your expiration date in Money Plus by selecting Help / About Microsoft Money; it appears to the right of the serial number.
Ditched by Money, but Quicken Wants You
I suppose that this means Intuit wins the desktop personal finance software war. Indeed, it looks like Microsoft has really given up, as their last step is to make it easy for users to move to Quicken.
We’re working closely with Microsoft to develop an easy way for Money users to transfer data into Quicken desktop products. We’re assessing how we can make this capability a reality in conjunction with the release of Quicken 2010 in the fall.
An Intuit representative e-mailed me saying that they are working quickly on making a conversion file that would seamlessly move data from Money to Quicken.
In the meantime, Quicken is directly targeting the Money orphans by offering up to a $50 discount on Quicken products until the end of June: $20 off Quicken Deluxe, $30 off Quicken Premier and Home & Business, and $50 off Quicken Rental Property Manager.
Free Quicken Online & Others
But wait, MS Money says the primary reason they shut down is that many banks and brokerages are offering free aggregation services which provide a similar service. Indeed, there are also standalone aggregation sites like Yodlee, Mint, and Geezeo. And if you want a free desktop finance software with double-entry accounting, there is the open-source GnuCash, though it certainly lacks some polish.
But wait, why didn’t they just do their own online version? Intuit introduced Quicken Online, which is now free and tries to add a little Quicken flavor to the usual aggregation model. More competition would have been good. I guess they spent all their energy on Bing.
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Ditched by Money, but Quicken Wants You
Unless you live outside the US, in which case we can’t be bothered selling to you, so please feel free to take your business elsewhere….
Why pay at all? I have been using the open source GNUcash for my double entry accounting for the past 5 years with no problems. You know that in a year with a monopoly position in the desktop home accounting software market they will be jacking up the price. Don’t be fooled.
Another reason I hate Microsoft’s business practices. They push you to upgrade, but now when I get a new computer I will not be able to activate my copy of Money 2007. I should have stayed with the older versions of Money. Maybe I can export and downgrade to a version that does not require online activation. Of course it probably won’t be compatible with the operating system. For those of us that have been relying on this product to manage financial info, they really screwed us. I know we need to wait and see, but I have major doubts that we will be able to export and import into Quicken without issue. I had database issues just doing a Money upgrade!!
So here’s a question…why does anyone buy anything from Microsoft? have they heard of Apple?
Also, why not just use something like Mint.com?
I’ve tried Mint, Quicken and Yodlee and none can compare to what desktop software offers. Yodlee is good for a quick “at a glance” look at activity and balances, but it is painfully slow at categorizing transactions.
I agree that you can’t compare mint to quicken desktop, but I end up using both mint and quicken desktop. It’s double work for me, but it serves my needs.
Mint is great for my family because it has mint for iphone application, and now my wife can track our monthly budget while she is out for shopping and I am away from my computer.
Without mint iphone application, I will ditch Mint right away.
Try Moneydance. I switched from Quicken for Mac and haven’t looked back.
MS Money user and MMB reader here. I am disappointed with MS like everyone. My plan is to purchase Quicken 3 months before my online services expire. That way I have a 3 month window where I can ensure that all of my MS processes are running smoothly in Quicken before D-day.
I’ve been using Money 2002 since, well, 2002. And other than downloading my credit union statements directly into Money, I don’t use any of its online functions. Mainly just a computer-based checkbook/balance sheet. I resisted upgrading because of the issue with online activation & expiration. And I prefer to use desktop software for financial stuff – I just don’t want that all aggregated in the “cloud”.
The part that rubs most users the wrong way is the inability to export our full account data out into a usable format. The QIF export truncates info and doesn’t pick up everything. Same with MS’s recommended transaction report exports. Since they are no longer going to support the format, they should provide a utility to do full exports or at least open up the data file format so that others can create tools to allow this. I have 10 years of info that I can’t export in a decent format.
I wonder if there is any chance of a lawsuit relating to MS in essence holding my data hostage and not giving me adequate access to it.
I always use Money in offline mode.
Will it make any difference to me too?
It seems QOL is full of bugs. I just tried it with one account but it has all incorrect information. It shows bill due which is not even my biller.
Moneydance, http://moneydance.com/, is a good alternative to Quicken that works on Linux, Mac and Windows.
It is well worth the money for the software. Plus upgrades to the latest version are included in your original purchase of the software. I have been using the MoneyDance on Ubuntu Linux for 2 years and am very happy with it.
If you don’t use Money’s online services AND you just input everything manually, you should be fine, assuming you don’t need support.
However, another issue if you import Money files from your banks, is how long your bank will keep making those QIF file types.
Guess what…. I have been a MS Money user since 1997 or so and I have entered all my data going back 32 years! So my MS Money file covers pretty much my entire financial life. It’s about 30 MB. Can anyone beat that? Anyway, there is a 1-step Quicken data convert out there now that’s supposed to convert files from Money to Quicken. It did not work for me (It gave me an error message, told me “my Quicken file is open”). Quicken support could not help, told me to use QIF files. Import/Export using QIF’s must be done one account at a time (I have 20 accounts including closed accounts.) Plus it has limitations as mentioned. As mentioned, Intuit is working on an improved one-step conversion program. We’ll see how that works. In the end, I might just stick with MS Money. The discontinuation of online services are not as important as most institutions have an download to MS Money feature that can be initiated from their website. So that leaves stock and fund quotes. I might just stick with MS Money and update stock and fund prices manually from time to time. We are not supposed to track our net worth minute by minute, day by day anyway, right?
Gosh, first Encarta and now Money? What’s up with creating programs that enhance home life and help households learn and keep track of their money?
Oh, well, back to the old pencil and paper!
To those worried about not being able to activate ever again, why not try creating a virtual machine using VMWare/Virtual PC/VirtualBox and installing MS Money there? Unfortunately, you will need another Windows license to put on there.
I use mint.com. Maybe not as powerful but it’s free and I can check it anywhere and see all types of accounts.
Warren,
I can share your pain.
Even if Quicken data converter may be able to help one day but you can never be sure of data integrity.
Who know Q will not raise its price too high once it has monopoly.
I have used money for ten years and loved the low price and interface. I will probably keep using it and update stock accounts manually. I think I will not trust microsoft again:(
Are there any oneline service simular to mint.com that support international users outside of the US and Canada, or at least QIF import?
D’OH – I’ve been using MSM since 1994 (got you beat there Warren) and my file is like 55mb (but I didn’t backfill like you did). I’ve faithfully and stupidly bought every update even when all they did was shuffle icons around, take away functionality and just confuse me. I’ve switched credit cards and banks because they stopped being “2 way” with Money. And put up with 15 years of botched updates and processing problems when they decide to do something different without notice.
And this is the first I’m hearing of it!! Of course when they want to sell something, its right there after the login.
Way to screw us MS!!!
I’ve also been a long time MS Money user, and backfilled data (mostly credit card transactions) to 1991. The discontinuance of MS Money is irritating.
The easy reporting, searching, and “listing of everything for a payee” is something I use a lot. I also like the online updating of credit card, bank account, and credit union accounts.
This year for the first time I did my tax returns online through a web site (credit union offered a good deal) instead of Turbo Tax on the desktop (I’m pretty sure the online app was also based on Turbo Tax). It makes me wonder if I should switch to something similar for personal finance.
But … there are times when I cannot access the Internet (or a specific web site), and that’s never the case with a desktop app (at worst, I just couldn’t get the online updates).
So it will be a tough decision on converting. If the Money to Quicken conversion app that Intuit is working on truly brings over everything, quickly and easily, that will sell me. I have no interest in losing major chunks of information (e.g. payee info, comments, inventory records). Otherwise, I’m still investigating.
Hey Warren and other long time MSM users. We bought our first computer in Fall 1992 and it came with MSM, so I started using it then and upgraded as needed. I loved the automatic stock transaction update that was pulled from Charles Schwab. Switched to a broker that didn’t do this. Had to update manually. Bummer. MSM in the early years didn’t have much on the investment side, so in later years when it did, i back filled back to 1992. This was helpful to have one place to show the wife that we weren’t doing too bad. You could say I was a comprehensive user with all credit cards, bank accounts, investment accounts including 401k’s, 529 and IRA plans. I hope (and pray) the conversion program brings everything over, 17 years of info is hard to replace. I’ll be interested in hearing what others experience.
I started out using MS Money, then switched to Quicken. After dumping my PC for a Mac I couldn’t get into the Mac version of Quicken so I went with MoneyDance and I’ve never been happier!
I have been a MS Money user since 1994, although my first personal finance software purchase was Quicken, I gave it up quickly when Microsoft Money came on the scene. I religiously bought all of the MS Money upgrades until about 2007 because they didn’t really change anything and took away some neat features. Still, I have been a very loyal MS Money user and am very concerned about the thought of transferring all of my data. I do use the online portfolio feature and I understand I don’t have to switch right away, but they dumped me so I guess I’m anxious to move on. They very least they can do is offer Money users and incentive to switch to Quicken. Money has been my friend for so many years, I’m going to be very sad to see it go.
Microsoft strikes again – first FrontPage, then Digital Image now Money – what next?
Seems like MS should provide some compensation for customers who have become dependent on their products and have accumulated extensive data files based on their software – I know, don’t hold my breath
Jeff
How about costing $0 !!! Migrate to GNUCash or an open source alternative. GNUCash will continue to update as long as it is developed, and it will ALWAYS be FREE. I’ve had it for commercial software, and having to re-buy it every few years because they stop updating online.
To bad MS doesn’t evacuate the desk top os, then maybe we’d get a stable product without the blue death screens.
One of the few products they had that kind of work, must be making the rest of their stuff look bad. But I guess this is the logical conclusion, the last few updates did not add much but did eliminate features that I used, so now they eliminate all of the features.
I am currently using money 2007 on my computer. I never really use the online service at all. however, the problem is that I am planning to get a new computer and reinstall the money 2007. I intend to keep using 2007 since i really do not have any crazy needs but simply input my transaction everyday.
I wonder whether i can actually reinstall money 2007 to my new computer. anyone knows?
@sadperson –
“Product Activation” started with MS Money 2008 (MS Money Plus). So if you are using MS Money 2007 you should be able to reinstall and use Money 2007. With MS Money 2008 / MS Money Plus, you get only 2 activations total.
I have used Money for a long time. Getting trasactions from downloaded from the bank has always been the big thing, and mine is going to expire in about 20 days.
I use Money for business and so I have to get the data to another program.
Any other programs besides Quicken that can import the old Money data?
How has the Quicken conversion gone for people so far? Is their new converter program out yet?
Thanks for any help you can offer!
@Brent –
You may be able to download data from the bank website into an OFX file which Money can then import. This should still work after Money expiration.
Attempted “automated” Quicken conversion was a failure for me. Not sure if Quicken is working on an improvement.
Exporting all Money accounts into QIF files, one per account, would be an extremely tedious process and I don’t think QIF format recognizes transfers between accounts. Only deposits and withdrawals.
Update – – MS Money gave me a splash screen today upon opening telling me that Quicken 2010 will now import MS Money files directly. The Quicken website (updated 10/26/09) says that too, and also Quicken 2009. See http://quicken.intuit.com/support/articles/getting-started/upgrading-and-conversion/7468.html . I will probably try it. The online price for Quicken Deluxe 2010 is $59.99. Definitely want it cheaper than that, so the least I can do is wait for the Quicken/TurboTax bundle deals that come out after Jan 1. If any one tries the conversion into Quicken, please let us know how it goes!
If any one tries the conversion into Quicken, please let us know how it goes!
Hello Warren –
I tried the Money (Plus Deluxe) conversion in my newly-purchased Quicken Deluxe 2010. I’ll save a lot of words here. It isn’t working. Microsoft says it is a Quicken issue. Quicken says it is a Microsoft issue. I’ve spent several hours with both technical support departments and the bottom line is, everything they say should work, doesn’t work. Nobody knows why the “My Money.mny” file is invisible. Looking at permissions, making sure the “Hidden” option is unchecked, and checking “Show Hidden Files” in File Options don’t work. Quicken’s Import QIF program doesn’t import anything, so that option blows. So nice that they offer it, though, in Quicken Deluxe 2010. When I tried, I got a window that essentially says, “Don’t see your Quicken data file? That’s because Import QIF doesn’t import any file known to the Western World. Call Quicken owner Dan Gilbert. Wait, that won’t work, he’s too busy building casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati. Oh yes, and paying LeBron James a criminal amount of money to play in Quicken Loans Arena. He doesn’t have time for you, so good luck, Jack!”
Robert A is correct, it does not work at all. I import my MS Money file and when ever you try to update from your Banks the program hangs. I too have been on the phone with Quicken Support for over 4 horus, they keep having me try the same things over and over again. I have been instructed to upload my files (Money and Quicken). That was 2.5 weeks again. No one can give me any update on the problem.
Qucken Support is totally usless and no one seems to have a clue. Sounds like a big marketing campain with no software to support it.
I’m about to request a refund and just use online banking.
Quicken 2010 (home and Business) can’t find my Money files, either. However, neither can I! I’ve looked everywhere, and searched, including “hidden” files. I know they’re out there as my Money program still works, and they show up on a Quicken list. Just can’t be seen or accessed. Can anyone help? Otherwise it’s time to return Quicken under their money back guarantee…
Thanks.
Janet, I feel your pain. I tried the same things you did. I finally found the My Money.mny file I knew was there but Windows Explorer, Quicken, and I couldn’t “see,” just as you have described. Here’s where your file is – C:Users/yourname/AppData/Local/VirtualStore/Program Files/Microsoft Money Plus. Weird. A Microsoft tech support person, who didn’t know why this file couldn’t be found, did suggest I run Windows Search (not Google Desktop Search). I did, and that was the result of the search. I would never have found it and I doubt anyone else would.
I finally decided to start fresh with Quicken 2010 Deluxe after ten years with Microsoft Money. Didn’t import anything. I like Quicken. The clean start is working for me.
Good luck.
I’m looking for alternative to MS Money, but it seems that really there is no other one at its level. In particular I couldn’t find any other software with:
– support for international currencies (quicken, gnucash, acemoney, moneydance, wesabe have it….mint doesn’t)
– support for international stocks including online price update (gnucash, moneydance, acemoney ok but NOT QUICKEN!!!)
– support for investment accounts and investment type such as stocks, mutual funds,etc… (gnucash sees each stock as a distinct account – no easy way to keep stocks organized both by investment account AND investment type)
– while entering a transaction, support for automatic online retrieval of the exchange rate at the transaction date (only Money does this, apparently noone else does NOT EVEN QUICKEN; so when you enter a past transaction between two currencies (such as a transfer or investment transaction in a non-home currency) you have to manually go and find what the exchange rate was at that date and type it in;
– extensive investment reporting and charts (just Money and Quicken)
So does anyone know of any other real good alternative to Money ?
Or maybe we can try and patch Money to keep it working…
A good idea. Where do we start?
Probably setup a wiki or something to see how many people are interested and collect ideas. Is there already one? If not I’ll do it next week.
OK everybody, I tried the conversion and it worked quite well for me (at least at first glance). I tried the converter in the Quicken Deluxe 2009 (R7) and Quicken Home & Business 2010… It seems to be the same converter in both. The converter did its job quickly, and the new Quicken file opened up right away. My net worth differs by about $200 between the two programs, probably due to the difference in the way Q does certian things. The biggest “conversion issue” I see so far is that Quicken does not have “Linked Cash Accounts” to link with investment accounts, so it imports the cash accounts as separate unrelated accounts. I will see what Q’s normal way to handle this and convert to their method. The first challenge will be to figure out what’s going on with Q’s user interface. I suppose that is just a matter of familiarity, and a Q user moving to MS would find the same thing.
If I don’t like Q, I might stay with MS and enter transactions manually or by downloading OFX files from the bank website. On that subject, MS now says they will make a verision of MSMoney that does not require product activation, by Jan 31, 2010. This is important if you think you want to use MSMoney indefinitely.
PS – – @Janet and @Robert – – How could you not know where your MS Money data file is? How do you ever back it up? For me, it’s basically the most important file on my hard drive, I make backups regularly in several locations including off-site.
Warren – You don’t know what my software situation is, so I would advise you not make a holier-than-thou statement in this blog with regard to our knowing where our Money file is or implying that we have no clue about backing up our financial files. Congratulations on being so brilliant. However, your pompous denigrating statements are not appreciated.
Update:
The conversion went well. There were only a few minor issues:
(1) I had shorted a couple stocks and if the shorted stock pays a dividend, the amount of the dividend is subtracted rather than added to the account. The converted quicken file had them added, so I had to change them manually to “negative dividends”
(2) For some reason I had to enter re-enter the interest for a few CD’s (not all of them) manually.
(3) For some reason the scheduled bills included a lot of bills in the past that were already paid. I had to delete them manually.
All things considered, I’m quite pleased. With over 30 years of transactions, the current balances agree between the two programs to the penny.
Still a lot to get used to. I really like MSMoney’s register view compared to Quicken. However all the reviews seem to give Quicken a slight edge overall so I expect to be happy with it eventually. Best wishes to everyone else in the same situation.
@Robert: SORRY.
Update – The Money to Quicken conversion continues to go well. Another issue has arisen that takes some time and effort to deal with. It seems Quicken wants to rely on its own download (rather than the information stored in the Money file) for historical share prices. This is fine unless it’s a stock or fund that’s no longer traded, or otherwise not recognized, in which case Quicken can’t find prices. Quicken also sometimes doesn’t seem to download older price data (like more than about 5 years old). It’s possible to export the prices stored in the MSMoney file, but it requires an export/import operation. In some cases I was also able to manually import the data from financial websites into Quicken.
Okay, I am trying to follow this, but I need some clarification before I start messing with it.
I moved from a PC to a Mac, so already I was out of luck with MSMoney. I want to keep my data, obvi.
Should I buy/download quicken, and can I put all the data on a little stick thingy and put it into my new mac???
I tried moneydance, but it was not great for me. I am hesitant to keep trying things, it is too frustrating!!
My MS Money 2006 suddenly stopped entering transactions for next year (2010). It includes the total in the account register but does not display the transaction affecting the total. The display options show that it will show current year only and I cannot change it.
I thought I would be able to continue using MSM 2006, if only manually, but apparently not. MS has killed it. The off line option is gone too.
I would appreciate if any one has an idea to solve this. thanks.
With MS Money 2006 Standard (version 15.0.80.513, 16 MB “My Money” file, 42 open and closed accounts, 9 years of data) on Windows Vista, I am still able to enter transactions for 2010. I also still have the “Work offline” option on the opening screen.
I also have nearly 20 years of data on Microsoft Money Plus and spend a considerable amount of time with it each day. My file is nearly 50 MB and is so important to me that I also backup to multiple locations… My main concern in moving to Quicken is whether information for an investment with multiple trades over time is accurate and reliable… I am still using Money Plus and hoping (praying) another firm will buy it from Microsoft before the cutoff date. With the resources Microsoft invested into Money over the years, it must have tremendous value. I would think an investor would want to buy it from Microsoft… Without Money, Quicken will have a monopoly, so I would also think there are antitrust issues. Does anyone know if there is a possibility that the Microsoft Money program will be purchased by another firm and continued?
Peter: I have tried to keep up to date on the discontinuation of MS Money but have seen nothing about the possibility of someone taking over MS Money. Regarding the possibility of converting your data to Quicken, it went well for me. The only problem with imported investments is when stock splits are involved, and that’s due to the idiotic way that MS Money handles stock splits. It’s easy to edit the pre-split transactions in Quicken to show the true pre-split quantity and price. By the way, my Money file is (was) 40 MB and the converted Quicken file is 16 MB.
Warren, Thanks for the information. I’m going to wait before dropping Money, just in case something happens. I hope there might be new life for Money, but I haven’t heard anything either. Hopefully, interested parties are waiting until later this year to negotiate a better price from Microsoft. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll switch to Quicken before the cutoff date. Also, the conversion may be smoother later in the year… It sounds like you when you were converting to Quicken, you ran both Money and Quicken simultaneously. I would like to try that, although I’m not sure exactly how one would do so. You may have completely switched to Quicken by now, and it sounds like you would stay with Quicken even in the unlikely event that Money is revived.
Peter – It’s no problem to run MS Money and Quicken simultaneously. When Quicken converts the Money file, it creates a new Quicken data file but leaves the Money file intact. So you can maintain both versions, but you must enter and/or download new transactions into both programs. In my case I ran them side by side and checked the end-of-month net worth amounts going back in time, to make sure all transactions and historical prices were correct in the Quicken version.
The bigger concern is whether the conversion will “work”. It worked for me but as you can tell from the comments, does not work for others.
I’ve started a discussion wiki at the link above, everybody can register and contribute.
Do you think that it would be possible to convince MS to provide Online services (which they are maintaining until Jan 2011 anyway) to everybody?
Completed transfer MS Money Home and Business to Quicken sucessfully and balance to the penny.
Qucken allows eveerything I used in MS Money.
Hi Warren
You seem to be the font of all knowledge on MS/Quicken so i’m hoping you can help me with my queries.
I live in the UK so my options of finance packages are limited anyway. Although i’ve purchased Quicken 2010 from the US i don’t believe I have access to any of the on-line support. I’ve been using Microsoft Money 97 for over 10 years and want to import the data into Quicken. I’ve read on some blogs that I will need to convert to a later version of MS – do you know if this is correct?
Also can you please help by telling me what I need to do to import the data over? I don’t have any guidance with the Quicken disc so i’m at a loss as to where to start…..
Many thanks
Michelle
Michelle, you need Money 2007 or 2008 installed (and Money data updated to one of those). So if you are still using Money 97, you need to upgrade. See also the MSMoneyEnd.wikispaces.com wiki, linked when you click my name “Lbpd” above here.
Michelle,
It seems a shame that you would have to purchase Money 2007 or 2008 at this point, just for the conversion. I see that Money 2007 or 2008 are both selling for around $40 USD on Ebay. That’s surprisingly high to me, maybe the demand is being driven by people in your exact circumstance. And they are no longer available for purchase from MS. Perhaps you could “borrow” a MS Money disk from someone and install it on a temporary basis, just for the conversion. I think you would not have a guilty conscience under these circumstances. Or (maybe foolish of me to even think this) could the MS or Quicken support people have some way to help you?
Michelle, Warren, you can probably just use one of the trial versions of money 2008 or 2007 (see the wiki for more info) which are free and last 60 days (enough to import the data to Quicken).
Lbpd, that’s a great idea. I’m all set with Quicken at this point but, the MS Money trial is exactly what Michelle needs. I checked and the download is still available. Thanks!
Thanks forthe comeback Michael. MSN 2006,Bills and Deposits does not function beyond the end of 2009. So I must have a more primal version. I can enter data manually in each register though. Not what I would like to do forever. So I downloaded a free trial of MSN 2008, preparing to transfer to Quicken. Oddly 2006 version was frozen even though I choose to maintain both programs, refusing to delete 2006.
2008 is working well and I hate to lose it. I tried to purchase it but the MS site will not allow it. It will expire in 60 days.
On to Quicken deluxe. The cover does not seem to maintain stock portfolio data similar to MSM…but is available in Priemier edition. Also MSN Money no longer maintains its portfolio manager. So how can I maintain my portfolio? This is not good.
GAP
Ok – so we can import the files but the balances dont add up. We can see what MS Money says we have in our bank accounts, but Quicken gives us a completely different amount. Where we are also struggling, is that when we import our bank/credit card balances, they all end up as double entry. Anyone else having this issue?
Jeni: As mentioned above there were a few discrepancies with my import too. I found I just had to correct them by brute force. Go back and examine the transactions to see the differences between the original MS transactions and the imported Q transactions. If you see duplicate entries you just have to delete the duplicates. I suggest you examine the balances month by month, compare Q vs MS. If the balances match at the beginning of the month and do not match at the end, it means some transactions are wrong during that month.
Seriously, isn’t there any SIMPLE program that can be used as an electronic checkbook register basically. Just to categorize and do the simple math, and make it easy to look at transactions. And of course easily import from money. That is the only thing I used MSMoney for, I don’t need the online system.
Moneydance didn’t work for me.
Thanks
Another thing about the trial is that you get 60 days of working online service! So eventually reinstalling it every 60 days, you could get online services up to 2011.
my father purchased a new laptop. The old computer has Money 2001. They have never had internet until now, wireless on the new laptop. How can I transfer his files from the antique to the new laptop. As stated earlier – the Gateway came with MS Money so I do not have an install disk. any help appreciated…
Well, here goes. I have been using 2002 MM mainly as a checkbook, balance bank statement , and for taxes. (No online help from MM.) But, I use it frequently to check payees, bills i need to pay, etc. I downloaded the 2002 MM software into my Vista laptop in Nov.09 when my old computer crashed, loaded the backup CD (not sure how I was successful) and continue to use the system. However, I have problems backing up (again) to the CD and so simply have a back-up in the computer (which scares me). I bought Quicken 2010 because I thought i could transfer everything over, but now have to use the MM 08 trial version transfer before i transfer to Quicken 2010. The problem:?? before I can successfully install the 08 trial version, a window pops us saying I must uninstall the edition of my already installed MM version. In other words, I must uninstall my 2002 MM. Does this mean I may lose all my data from 2002 – now.??
I would just continue using my old MM 2002, but am afraid that just backing up to the computer is a risky business.
Thanks for any advice!
memawdeb – that’s a tough one, you need a Money install disk to install Money on the new PC. You could shop ebay and similar sites for a Money 01 install disk. Or any year after 01 (which would upgrade his Money data file when he opens it in the new version).
Sharon – if backing up is your only concern, why not back up to a thumb drive, external hard drive, or to one of the many free on-line backup services? (for example adrive.com). But to answer your question, you would not lose all your data from MM 02, your current file would remain, and MM 08 creates a new version of the data file for its use. If you wanted to go back to MM 02, you could uninstall 08, reinstall 02, and continue to use your current MM02 data file.
I have Microsoft Money Plus (Click “About” and it says version 17.0.120.1415) in this XP PC. Will Quicken 2010 be able to import the .mny file data into it? Is there any to simply import the Money file from a flash drive, or do Money and Quicken have to be co-installed on the same PC? I want to run Quicken on a new Win7 PC, but don’t want to have to install Money on it just to do a conversion. Thanks.
Stubby, you need both msmoney and quicken coinstalled. If you have a reasonable capable pc you can create a virtual machine (e.g. using VirtualBox) on it, install both money and quicken trials on the VM, import from money to quicken, keep a copy of the quicken data and then delete the whole VM.
Warren/Lbpd
Thank you both for your advice. I did actually try to download the 60 day free trial of 2007 or 2008 but again this it seems this is only available to US customers. It would appear your suggestion of borrowing a version of MS Money 2007 or 2008 from someone just to upgrade and then convert to Quicken would be the best option but unfortunately i’ve had no luck finding anyone who has a copy.
Yes, it’s a piece of cake, thanks Lbpd.
I installed Quicken on my new Win7 laptop, then installed my original Money Plus from my WinXP desktop as well, and successfully inported the Money file into Quicken. My original account categories all had short names, so nothing got truncated. My checkbook total was off by an even $60; I attribute this to an addition error I’ll worry about later. Only 1 scheduled payment had to be manually deleted; it was for my car payment to Ford from 2006 that was already paid off. Quicken still thought the loan was active and said I was 4 years late making my next payment. I quickly deleted the alert & its scheduled payment & won’t see that again. Oh yeah, when you re-install Money on a new Win7 system, the default directory pathing for saving your .mny and backup .mbf files is different, so you will have to browse to the correct location so Money can save its files, and it does.
Good luck to all who follow in my footsteps.
The program still works fine for me. I have no intention of moving to Quicken. We tried Quicken just to see and it only has month forcasting. We live by our yearly forecasting. I don’t see the benefit of moving to a new product that actually has less functionality.
Danny, I think that everybody here would have been happy to stick with MSMoney…if they didn’t discontinue the possibility to renew online services. I’m sure that people whose online-services are not yet expired are still very happy with MSMoney.
Can anyone describe the process where MSN Money gets Price Updates for the securities in the Portfolio? Is there a service that is paid by Microsoft to do this? Might the service continue after 2011? I often download Stock Prices from Yahoo. Can this download be read into MSN Money? The Yahoo download is a .CSV file. This can be converted into a .TXT file.
Henry, you are correct, MS pays a source for stock prices. That functionality will be lost after 2011, or 2 years from your activation date, whichever is first. I came across this link:
http://thefinancebuff.com/2009/09/security-quote-script-for-microsoft-money.html
which describes a method for getting the stock quotes from Yahoo to MS Money. Hope it works for you.
Interesting note: Import of stock prices from a .csv file is built in to Quicken. I had to use it extensively in my conversion from MS Money.
Henry, you are correct, MS pays a source for stock prices. That functionality will be lost after 2011, or 2 years from your activation date, whichever is first. I came across this link:
http://tinyurl.com/ylnzbwf
which describes a method for getting the stock quotes from Yahoo to MS Money. Hope it works for you.
Interesting note: Import of stock prices from a .csv file is built in to Quicken. I had to use it extensively in my conversion from MS Money.
Thank you, Warren.
I downloaded the Python script and the Python Program and ran it against my 2005 MSN Money. It worked immediately and updated the stocks in my Merrill Lynch account (I had turned off the automatic updating by MSN Money).
This solution of yours has taken a real load off my mind in view of the irresponsible behavior of Microsoft in terminating support for MSN Money.
Thank you very much!
Henry,
You’re welcome. I would like to say I’m an expert and knew just where to look but actually it was a lucky find using Google. Glad to hear it worked for you!
Current Money users may want to look at this:
http://sites.google.com/site/pocketsense/home/msmoneyfixp1
Pretty easy way to keep getting online statements.
Google should buy MS Money and continue it … still holding out hope that Money will remain after 2010
I’m currently using MM version 4.0 (1995?). I want to switch to Quicken Home & Business so that I can take advantage of some of the services my bank offers with online banking. To date I’ve done all of my entries the old fashion way = paper checks and manual entry.
Anyway, I don’t think I can convert my money files from the 4.0 format directly to Quicken. Does anyone know where I can find a walkthrough on what I will need to do to convert my “old” data?
Dinosaur,
You need MS Money 2007 or newer, for the conversion to Quicken to work. You can download a trial version from MS. (hopefully it’s still available). Go back and read the posts from around Jan 18th and forward for more info. Especially the posts from “lbpd”, they are very helpful. Also the wiki website he mentions in his Jan 18th post. Good luck!
About 6 weeks ago I started a blog as I was learning all I can about getting around the lack of online updates after Money goes OFFLINE. My favorite method thus far is PocketSense that Bob posted a link to. I just published a webpage add-in today to go along with PocketSense, so that after you have the scripts setup, you’ll be able to update everything from within Money as you do now – even after Money is OFFLINE.
It works so well, that I’m turning off my Online updates and switching over! No need to switch to Quicken now 🙂
Check out the Blogsite @ http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/
Well, I downloaded the Money Deluxe trial to upgrade the Money 2006 version I had been using. Then bought Quicken Deluxe and imported the file. Aside from the problem with finding my .mny file in a hidden location, I think the import went off without a hitch and I still have all of my data. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Warren/Lbpd
Thank you for your responses in January. I have managed to obtain a copy of Microsoft Money 2007 so I can upgrade my existing money file. I’ve successfully loaded this and it has deleted older versions of Microsoft Money.
When I then tried to open my existing Money file (2000 version) I entered my password and it advises me that Money will convert my file so that I can work with it in Money 2007. It informs me that Money will make a copy of my original fie amd then upgrade into 2007. To accept this I pressed ‘next’ as requested. For a few seconds it tells me its converting the file but then I get a message advising me that:
“Money can’t open this file because it was created using a different version of Money.” It seems a strange message to receive as that the point of converting the file!!
Given the struggle i’ve had getting hold of a copy of Money 2007 your help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Michelle
Michelle,
If you had a UK Money file, I don’t believe a newer US version will convert that file.
Due to the discontinuation of MS Money, Microsoft has released MS Money without activation requirements and online services. This is for the US version only:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=60302e1e-207e-4710-ac80-d19c22e47488
Can anyone help me with my Money worries? I have been using Money 97 for I guess 13 years, and its predecsssor before that.
I recently had my PC overhauled, and guess what, my Money programme got lost. The original disks (floppies) are unusable, apparently corrupted. So I have over 15 years of data I can’t access. I’m not concerned about on-line services. I just want to access my records to make sure they don’t get lost, and so I can decide what programme to use in the future.
I have downloaded a free “Money Plus” programme, but it won’t open the old files. It crashes each time. Most grateful for any advice…
I have the original CD’s from Money 2002, 2003 and 2005. I would be happy to help but I’m guessing from your spelling you need the UK version (?). If I can help, perhaps Jonathan can put us in touch with each other.
Edit: oops, didn’t read fully.
@Warren – I can send you guys each other’s e-mail if that’s okay.
“Ameridan” you are right, unfortunately 🙁
I’ve tried to convert my DB from Money UK (ver 14.0.120.1105) to any Quicken or all latest versions of Money – unsuccessful 🙁
Guys, do you have any idea, how to convert it?
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