Monday, February 04, 2008

Obtaining Money Plus outside the US or Japan

I've been a little busy recently, and so my posting to the newsgroups, web site and this blog has been, well, a bit intermittent. I can't promise this will include in the short/medium term.

With the continuing lack of information on UK, Canadian, French and other versions of Microsoft Money, it's becoming increasingly more likely that these markets are no longer being targetted by Microsoft. We'll need to see over the next months whether that is again the case for a 2009 (Plus+ or whatever name they use) product.

In the meantime, some people are trying out the Plus product by downloading the trial. Unfortunately this presents a problem when they come to purchase the product from outside the US. Places such as amazon.com do not ship the software outside of the US.

To get around this restriction, you can use a digital download instead. The 'trick' is to use a 'fake' US address. Obviously you need to avoid the purchase of a CD media here.

You can obtain the various versions of Money through digital download through one of the following links:


  • Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe
  • Microsoft Money Plus Premium
  • Microsoft Money Plus Home & Business
These links are no longer valid

Update: 5 February - you can't directly update a non-US money file (e.g. UK, France) directly into Money Plus (except possibly the Canadian one).

I've not gone through the process above, so would be happy to hear experiences.

25 comments:

Illiterate My Money User said...

I am sorry to post this question on your Blogsite, but I searched the Internet for the answer to my question with no luck. So here it goes......
I am new to the Microsoft My Money Plus 2008 program. When I bought my computer I received a free trial period of the 2007 Money program. I really enjoyed the program and when my trial period expired I decided to upgrade and buy the 2008 program.
My problem is I am no longer able to see graphs in the Research Wizard program area. I enjoyed seeing the graphs under the Fundamentals and the 50 and 200 day moving averages. What can I do to fix this problem? If this is an unfixable problem….I want my 2007 Microsoft Money software program back. :-)
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. I hope it is something simple that I have not been able to figure out yet. Thanks again.

Glyn said...

The research wizard is part of the MSN Money website, which is displayed within the Microsoft Money application - you can independently access it through this web link. It is highly likely that 2007 and 2008 use the same location, so reverting back might not fix the issue.

It's not an area I've ever used, but I did take a quick look to see whether I could see them - and, no I don't either.

Two explanations, neither of which is very helpful... a) they've removed them or b) we both have issues with our machines.

I've just looked back in some emails I have received in the past year - they tell me what was added at various times, but not what was removed. I would guess they've taken them out...

Illiterate My Money User said...

Thank you for your quick reply. I'm not happy with Microsoft at the point. It wouldn't bother me as bad if on the beginning screen of the Research Wizard there weren’t pictures showing what it SHOULD…(not yelling at you) look like. It is false advertisement to me……arrrggghhhh.
Thanks again,

Anonymous said...

I purchased a new computer with windows vista and money plus deluxe. Money will not work. I downloaded it and when I click on the icon it states that money has stopped working, it never started. Under details it list an appcrash. Any suggestions?

DK

Glyn said...

Hi DK

could be a number of things here. Are you using/upgrading an existing file? If you are, then see if you can open the sample file (or a new file).

You could try installing Money again, but right click on it and choose 'run as administrator'.

There is a service pack for Money Plus, which will bring the version up to 17.0.*.1415 (where * indicates the sku (deluxe, home/business etc)) - it would be worth checking your current version.

Also, do a search for the module mentioned in the application crash, as that really can help track down the exact problem.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I really want to get the new Money Plus 2008 here in the UK but it appears there are no plans for it to be released here.

I therefore was thinking about downleading it from the US but my question is then whether it will still work (e.g. deal with £'s, link to UK banks)????

Thanks

Glyn Simpson said...

Hi

yes it should. I use Money Plus here in the UK at present, and download statements without issue from NatWest, Tesco and other providers. My base currency is also UK Pounds and I do have a Euro and Dollar account too which are fine. I don't use all of the program (the tax stuff isn't really relevant to us over here!).

You won't be able to use the direct Nationwide download facility though, as that would require a UK version.

If you're using an earlier version of Money (UK), then there will be conversion issues, as you can't upgrade from a UK to a US version directly. See this article for more information.

Hope this is useful

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the prompt reply.

I actually work for a charitable trust that operates a home for people and have been put in charge of finances.

Thus the type of expenditure and income is very much like a large family house so I don't really need business orientated software, but at the same time, it is a little more complex and sophisticated than just a family home.

The trust has UK investments, a house, other property, and car and other general expenses and certain periodical extraordinary expenses.

Should I lean towards the US version of Money Plus HOme and Business or just US Money Plus??

What about the investment issue - will it track UK investments and link with Royal Bank of Scotland?

Thanks for all of your help!

Glyn Simpson said...

Sounds like you could go for the non-Business version (the business stuff is US orientated anyway).

What you can do is to try the trial versions first (see this page) as then you can gauge which program is more suitable. The trial is 60 days long (it's unlikely that you can run one, e.g. Deluxe, trial for 60 days and then the other, e.g. Business for another 60 days), so you could use 2 machines if you can or use something like Virtual PC to try them in a controlled environment (although that will cause you other work to install!).

As I mention, I use the US version - it allows me to track investments too. Not sure about the RBS download though - have a look on their site and see whether they offer OFX or QIF downloads.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I have an older Canadian version of Money and would like to upgrade to the new version of Money. However it doesn't seem as if Microsoft has released a non-US version of Money Plus yet. I want to be able to convert my old file to the new version. Anyone know when it will be available in Canada??

Thanks.

Glyn Simpson said...

Hi

you're right as there are no other versions of money plus outside of Japan and the US - so no specific Canadian version.

However, it has been reported that the US version of Money Plus will work with a Canadian file -this can be verified by downloading the trial version and seeing if it will convert your file.

I've written a bit more on this scenario on this article on money.mvps.org - hopefully this will help. In addition, this blog post (which these responses are on) have some links to a place you can download a purchased copy, should you decide to go forward with it.

Hope this helps

Glyn

Roy Man said...

How can I convert a Money 2002 file so that it runs on Money Delux. I really don't want to loose the data.

Glyn Simpson said...

Hi

it depends on the version you are using. If you've got a 2002 US Money file, then the only thing you need to do is open the file and Money will convert it itself.

If you have a non-US version, then things are much more tricky and time consuming. You'll need to do a QIF export/import for that, see this article for further information

Ian said...

I have recently got a new pc running Vista. After looking at advice on running MS Money on Vista, I bought the 2005 version of MS Money and got it up and working with my old data file (1999 MS Money).
However the graphics do not work on Reports or on Price History.
Does anyone know what I could try to get the graphics working?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Glyn Simpson said...

When you say 'the graphics' don't work, can you explain more? What do you see?

Anonymous said...

Hi Glyn

When I click on 'Reports' then 'Customise' and 'Charts'. it wont let me click on any of the Chart options. The reports will only display as numbers in rows and columns

On the Portfolio when I click on Price History on a particular share nothing comes up...just a small blue circle/clock face in the middle of the screen.

Any ideas?

Thanks Ian

Glyn Simpson said...

Hi Ian

certain reports allow you to do certain things - sometimes graphs are not available without changing some of the options.

Regarding the circle, if that takes a long time, the report generation may timeout. I'd suggest in that case, reducing the amount you are trying to display. For example, limit the date range. If you try it on a very low limit, then you may find the report showing again. You can then customize it to show more information as required

Glyn

Anonymous said...

Glyn
Thanks for the fast response
Tried that but no luck. These reports and price history graphs were working perfectly on my old version of MS Money under Windows XP

I'm wondering if its something in the old data file format that the 2005 version cant handle....or the graphics software. Clutching at straws.

Its annoying as everything else is working great like it did on my old computer.

Ian

Glyn Simpson said...

Have you tried a repair on the file at all (on the File-> menu?)

Ian said...

Glyn

I tried repairing the file but no luck. Thanks very much for taking time to respond.

Regards
Ian

Leo Mala said...

Hi

Is it still possible to obtain the Money Plus Home & Business via digital download from somewhere?

I'm using a trial version (which should expire within a week or so), and I would like to continue using the program!

I'd really appreciate your help!

Thanks in advance!

Leo

Glyn Simpson said...

Hi, unfortunately it's not sold electronically any more at all. You unfortunately will have a problem if you're on a trial version as that will stop working (as opposed to a version which has been activated and its license expiring, which continues to work).

I'd urge you to consider mechanisms of ensuring you can get your data after it expires (such as exporting reports of all data, or use of MoneyLink) as I don't see any easy route for you, unless you move to Quicken.

Glyn

Leo Mala said...

Hi Glyn

Thanks for the prompt reply!

I already tried Quicken 2010, but dropped it almost instantly due to the fact that it only works with the proprietary QFX format now (it doesn't import QIF for the important accounts anymore, and all the banks here work with either QIF or OFX). I even tried to find a decent OFX/QIF->QFX converter, but to no avail...

Any last ideias before I try GnuCash? :-)

Thanks again for your time!

Regards

Leo

Glyn Simpson said...

I have two pages on my website with some ideas:

http://money.mvps.org/faq/article/643.aspx, for open source ones and http://money.mvps.org/faq/article/551.aspx for commercial ones.

Can't really give an opinion on any of them as most I haven't tried. There may be a few missing off these lists, but I captured all I knew about at the time I last updated those pages.

Leo Mala said...

Hi Glyn

Thanks again for your reply!

I've just installed my Quicken 2010 trial copy back, and I'm willing to give it one more shot... :-)

Thanks for your time and help!

Regards

Leo