unofficial microsoft.public.money FAQ and A
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Q) How can I make my posts here more likely to get answers?
A) Remember that everybody who replies here is doing so voluntarily.
1) Make your subject meaningful. "Microsoft Money" isn't. Besides, it's completely redundant in the microsoft.public.money newsgroup--what else would you be posting about? "M02: how do I setup my stock options?" is. Somebody who knows how to do the latter might read your post and answer. Many of us won't even look at the former.
2) Don't whine. Oh, and DON'T SHOUT.
3) Provide sufficient environment information. As a minimum, this always includes the version of Money. Many times this also includes the operating system. If you are having problems printing, tell us the kind of printer.
4) Describe what you are trying to do, what is happening, and what you have attempted to do about it.
5) Please use the same terminology for things that the help file and the screens and the printed documentation use. Some questions don't get answered because none of us can figure out what you are talking about.
6) Please state your question. "I want to track savings bonds." is a poor question. "Should I enter my savings bonds in Money or just track them in Savings Bond Wizard?" is better. "When I entered my savings bonds the way Money told me to, it seems there is no good way to track their value. Is there a better way than making them CDs?" is likely to get some meaningful responses. All too often people post things like "Subject: Microsoft Money. When I installed Money it crashes." and expect help. This will get nowhere. It's not even a question and it provides insufficient information about environment and an insufficient description of the problem.
7) Don't expect miracles. The newsgroup is very good for "how-to" and usage case information. It is less useful, generally, for non-pervasive application crashes, installation problems, and so forth. If your installation of Money v. 4 on your WindowsXP dual-Athlon system stopped working after you installed the Mk. XVII VideoBlaster unless your modem is disconnected and you are simultaneously running Laura Croft Chases World Terrorism, you are unlikely to get help here. You likely have a unique configuration and problem that nobody else in the world shares. The fact that nobody here replies means nobody has a clue, not that nobody cares.
8) Don't post the same thing multiple times thinking it increases your chances of getting a reply. It doesn't. Quite the opposite.
9) Spare us the "if you don't fix my problem, I'll just get Quicken" histrionics. We are not a marketing arm of Microsoft. We really don't care. And, frankly, if going to Quicken seems to you like a preferable alternative to working through your problem, we'd by all means prefer you went that way. Then you can pester people in their newsgroup about fixing your problem or converting to Money.
10) Finally, remember why you posted and remember that Money is what it is. When you want to rant about how a feature works or doesn't work for you, we can suggest workarounds or offer alternative ways to solve your problem, but we can't change the product. Ranting at us about why the product should be changed and ignoring our suggested workarounds and solutions won't encourage people to try and help you in the future.
References:
newsgroups: Quicken newsgroup on your default news server
Q) I've been using M95 on Win95 happily for years now. All of a sudden I have a problem. Why can't anybody here help?
A) Unfortunately, the world and most of us here have moved on. While we'd like to help, many of us here haven't used this combination (or others that may be slightly newer like M98 on Win98) literally for years.
It is an unfortunate fact of life that personal computer hardware and software technology has advanced very rapidly, one in lockstep with the other. While you may find your environment just fine for your needs it is nonetheless as functionally obsolete as a DC-3 or a 1932 Packard.
The good news is that new Money licenses are very inexpensive--watch the sales; $40 or less, before rebate, is very common in the Sunday ads--and new versions import the data files from all old Money versions for the same locale, generally with a minimum of complications. Of course, the new version of Money probably won't work on your old hardware. Again there's a bit of good news among the bad: many inexpensive new PCs include OEM Money licenses.
See also the answer to "What's the worst thing that happens if I don't buy a Money version upgrade?"
Q) What's the worst thing that happens if I don't buy a Money version upgrade?
A) If you want to stick with an orphaned version of Money and pass on one or several upgrades, there are some known issues as well as some speculative ones you must consider:
The known issues:
- Support for older versions ends sooner.
- Services including transaction and quote download end sooner.
- Older versions will get "unsupported" sooner by FIs and so forth. "Unsupported" may just mean "don't call us if something goes wrong" or it may mean a change in interfaces that the old Money version can't deal with.
- Newly discovered issues will not get fixed. Not that they fixed old issues when the version was still current, but as you continue to use an old version, the odds of finding a new issue don't drop to 0.
- Changes in tax law will not get reflected in things like the Tax Estimator and the categories available for Investment Activity.The speculative issues:
- If an upgrade comes out that is compelling, data upgrades may be more problematic depending on how far back-level your data is. Based on M05, the odds for a compelling upgrade seem low unless something radically changes how Microsoft views the product and the market. Indeed, M06/7 can't import M98 files directly. (See "I just installed M06, it refuses to upgrade my M98 [or 99 or ???] version file. Why? What do I do?" for more on this.)
- The "learning curve" for such an upgrade grows as a function of the number of versions you are jumping.
- As the version in use becomes further back-level, the odds that an OS or other application/driver upgrade irretrievably breaks it increase. Your copy of M04 may not work on Windows2012 (or with IE 7, for that matter).
- You may not be able to re-install and update your old version with all the patches on a new machine or in case of a hard disk reload or replacement. This is one of the scariest issues in that there have been reports of problems restoring Money data file from backups if a new installation of the same version of Money doesn't have the same service fixes installed. This is because Microsoft has a) only made updates for Money available via the Money Internet Update integrated install--i.e., no patch file to download and store away, and b) routinely disappeared updates for old versions. Microsoft's push to sell Money as a download without CD and with most of the program downloaded through some internal protocol only makes this worse--you may not even have a way to install the basic application, much less the patches.The implication of this latter issue is that there may be **no way** for a user to install a usable/working/updated copy of your **fully-licensed** but obsolete version of Money on a new machine or a reloaded hard disk after the point where Microsoft withdraws support and disappears the Internet Updates. In the case of, say, replacing a failed hard disk, there may be no way for you to get to the point of being able to restore a working good backup of your Money data short of buying a newer version of Money and hoping that it can restore/upgrade this backup.
Microsoft really should provide the product updates some alternate way where the patch file is downloadable from Microsoft Downloads just like patches for normal Microsoft products. If Microsoft did that, the onus would still be on the user to download and save the patch indefinitely--but that would be better than today's case where there is nothing the user can do to protect against this risk.
References:
Microsoft Downloads site
Q) Where else can I go for help?
A) First, use the resources Microsoft provides with the product. On-line help has always been provided with Money and the amount and richness of this information has improved with every version of Money. Money 2002 comes with audio and video help, the traditional help file, the on-line Money user's guide, links to Microsoft resources on the web, the "Managing Your Finances…" book, and help for former Quicken users. Money 2003 omitted the book in favor of a book of ads. (Not many people read the old book. It's hard to imagine the ads will be more effective at reaching Money users.) Many of the "how-to" questions posed in the newsgroup are answered in on-line help.
Money 2005 moved the on-line help to "on-net". This complicates access to help for users who do not have continuous broadband connections. Likewise, Microsoft removed the audio help completely and removed most of the instructional videos.
Microsoft has finally linked many of the Money support resources to one support web page.
There is this newsgroup. The Microsoft news server has several months of this group available. Repeatedly "get more headers" until you have all of the messages and search from there. See "How can I make my posts here more likely to get answers?" for advice about posting to the newsgroup. If newsreaders make you uncomfortable or your proxy server blocks NNTP, there is also a web interface to the newsgroup.
groups.google.com has year's worth of posting from this news group and a very sophisticated search capability. Select Advanced Groups Search and enter "microsoft.public.money" in the newsgroup field.
There is a Yahoo! group on the subject, though it seems to have very little traffic and it does post a public membership directory, which may put you off.
The Microsoft Knowledge Base has lots of "how-to" answers and some--but by no means all--of the bugs and issues Microsoft knows about.
Glyn Simpson has an excellent page at mvps.org--it has some unique items tailored to the UK version of Money along with much else.
There used to be lots of books available for users of Microsoft Money. Perhaps a lot of them ended up getting pulped as there are fewer now. No endorsements are offered.
Opening a support incident with Microsoft Support may be the only possible solution to many installation, setup, crash and data file corruption issues. But remember, you bought the program for less than $100--in some cases a LOT less--and they will not fly programmers to your house to debug your problems.
References:
Amazon Microsoft Money books
Glyn Simpson's Money MVP page
groups.google.com
Microsoft Support Incident
Microsoft Support Money Page
microsoft.public newsgroups via web (select English/Money/Money General)
MS Support
MSKB
newsgroups: microsoft.public.money on Microsoft news server
Yahoo! Money group
Q) Why doesn't Microsoft issue a fix for this terrible problem immediately?
A) The only Money problems Microsoft has ever remedied prior to the next release are high-impact, pervasive problems that are not usage or "how-to" in nature.
High-impact in this context typically has meant those that result in display of incorrect balance information or the application abnormally ending in common circumstances. Problems with reporting and the finance management tools (budgeting, cash flow forecasting, debt reduction planner, etc.) have typically not been fixed prior to the next release, which has typically fixed some and added others.
Pervasive in this context has typically meant that the problem was likely to be visible to a majority of Money users--not just those who read the newsgroup.
They do this because they do not want to undertake major rework of the code on the fly due to concern about regression problems, they don't want to change how the product works--even when we don't like it working that way, and because they have limited resources for working on the code itself and most of these resources are dedicated to working on future versions.
Q) Why won't anybody answer my question posted here?
A) See the answer to "How can I make my posts here more likely to get answers?"
Q) Why won't Microsoft Support answer my question posted here?
A) This newsgroup is not a Microsoft-to-user support vehicle. It is for user-to-user support. Some Microsoft folks monitor this out of personal and, occasionally, professional, interest. They are not here--indeed, this forum is not here--to provide support from Microsoft to you. Try contacting Microsoft Support more directly.
References:
Microsoft Support Incident
MS Support
Q) Why won't the MVPs answer my question posted here?
A) The MVPs are all unpaid volunteers with real day jobs who give their time and talent to try and help where they can. Perhaps they're busy. Perhaps they don't know how to help. See "How can I make my posts here more likely to get answers?" for general advice on making your posting more likely to get help. Whining, begging and complaining that the MVPs haven't solved your problem is unlikely to help you solve your problem even if it does make you feel better. Worse, such behavior may get your name in their kill file so that your future postings will be invisible to them.
Please see this disclaimer if you are using Money 2005 or this comment if you are using Money 2006.
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Last update: 10 December 2006 |
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