Money 2005 QFE#2 for UK Users (1105 patch)

What is the QFE#2 for the UK users? Maybe an obscure title, but it's really good for Money 2005 UK users. It's the downloadable patch which brings a retail copy of Money 2005 to the 1105 update.

This is the update you need to reopen your Money files, should you need to reinstall later on, such as installing Money on a new PC. This is something that I've had a lot of emails about recently.

Should you reinstall your Money 2005 version, before you open your file, install this update as well and you won't have any issues. If you don't install this update, you'll find that you can't open your file.

If you're using Money 2005 and have no issues, then there is no need to install this update.

The update can be found on the Microsoft Download Site. [Edit 3/3/2013, Microsoft have removed this, please visit Article 649 on my main website instead]

Some of the articles on moneymvps.org will be updated to feature this update shortly.

Money 2005 Users action required

This is a warning to remind users of Money 2005 that if you haven't already created a backup CD of your installation with the patch on it, to do it now!

Microsoft will be turning off the servers which provide it shortly and there is no downloadable file with the patch in it.

Notes

• This affects ONLY Money 2005 users
• If you're in the US you do have the option of using the sunset edition
• If you're in the UK and other countries, then 2005 was the last version available to you and the sunset edition cannot be used as you can't convert between regional versions of Money.
• Microsoft plan to turn the servers off at the end of this month - January 31, 2011

Creation of backup CD

To create the patched CD, see this article. You won't need the CD unless you reinstall. If you think it won't affect you, consider that if you buy a new machine or your hard drive crashes, without it, you will irrevocably lose access to your Money file and there will be no way to get your data back.

Once you've created your backup CD, don't forget to test it (e.g. on another machine) to ensure it works

Money 2005 patch download available again

The Money 2005 Service Outage as reported earlier in the week is now fixed.

I received an email around 11pm BST (22:00 GMT) last night informing me. I've also heard from a couple of people confirming this is the case.

If you've been stuck at version 730, you should now try and restart Money and let the download occur. Once done, you may wish to consider making a CD as detailed in FAQ Article 630, BUT make sure you test it if you do!!!.

Thanks for all the comments and questions during the outage. It made the page reporting the problem one of my busiest ever.

Updating Money 2005 - Service Outage

I've been informed that currently upgrading Money 2005 from its 'out of the box' version to the patched version (from version 14.0.x.0730 to version 14.0.x.1105) is currently experiencing problems, and so these upgrades don't currently work.

Microsoft is working on the problem. In the meantime you'll probably not be able to open your Money file if you've just done a clean install and need to use an existing file.

As far as I know, it is affecting all regions.

Update: 14 May - I'm hearing that the fix should be ready later in the week, however this is not guaranteed.

16 May: Hearing this morning that things seem to be working again

MSN Money February site update

MSN Money February site update

When: Feb 6, 2009

This site update include a Preview of a new Portfolio Manager utilizing Silverlight technology. The Portfolio Manager overview provides more information and comparisons between the Portfolio Manager options on MSN Money.

Visit the What's New page for more information.

Further details on October MSN Money update

When: October 23

Primary updates include:
Redesigned Investing Home page
A few new calculators including a Driving License quiz
Update to the Deluxe Portfolio for Vista users (all Vista users of the Deluxe Portfolio will be prompted to update/install)

One update will impact Microsoft Money 2007:
Due to an update to Windows Live ID (Passport), Sharing a Money file with multiple Live Ids will be disabled. We recommend that you follow the Stop Sharing help topic in Money to disable any secondary IDs allowed to sign into your Money files. To continue sharing your Money file with more than one user, you can create a new WLID that all users know and then associate your Money file to that "shared" WLID. You can change the WLID for a file by going to File - Password Manager.

This update should not result in any downtime. More information can be found on the MSN Money Status Page

October Site Update

When: On or around Oct 23rd

Effect:

Some features may not be available for a few hours after market hours. This may include:

My Accounts
Portfolio
Bill Pay
My Money

Duration: From approximately 2 to 9 PM (Pacific)

MSN Money August Site Update

When: August 21, 2008

Effect:

Updates include:

• Processing new dividends and updating/backfilling missing dividend data for Mutual Funds
• Showing Stock Gifts, Stock Award and Exercised Options on the Insider Trading page
• Getting 52-week High/Low numbers for additional exchanges (primarily International)
• A new News provider: Minyanville

MSN Money July Site update

When: Weekend of July 11

Effect:
Some of the updates include:

• Word wheel - When entering a symbol/name look up, MSN Money will provide suggestions to complete your search.
• Retirement of the old Basic Portfolio - The new Portfolio Manager Essentials replaces this. Reference the Common questions about the MSN Money Portfolio Manager for more information
• Data quality improvement - for example: restoring missing historical charting data for investments that may have had different symbols.

MSN Money May Site update

The MSN Money website was updated yesterday.

The updates were very minor and caused little, if any downtime.

The most significant change was the replacement of the "Basic" Portfolio with an updated version (this has been available for preview for the past two months).

PC Pro Campaign - Forum Posting of my thoughts

PC Pro's campaign for a new version of Money is gathering some pace, as they've received 400 emails from people wanting a new version. Although I'm doubtful this will change the minds of the Microsoft people who make these decisions, it is an interesting story to follow.

I decided to answer a couple of questions and put my thoughts together (you may not agree with them, that's fine ;-)). Here's what I posted to their forum:

When Quicken pulled out of the UK market 6 or 7 years ago, it seemed that the writing was on the wall for Microsoft Money over here. Little competition meant that Microsoft didn't need to do much to make the product succeed.

Since that time, some new competition has emerged (personal accountz for one), but this isn't big enough to worry Microsoft, and duly we see a lack of new product for 3.5 years

In the US, things are different, not only with competition (I believe Quicken is #1 there) but also with banks competing with each other. You see a product which is being developed for the US market - integration with banks being an area where banks feel they 'have' to be as all of their competitors are doing it. Money is following this over there, and is being driven for the desires of that audience and not ours.

This isn't to say there aren't new features: Since the last version in the UK (Money 2005, released in 2004), the product has had tighter integration with US account aggregation services (Yodlee/CashEdge), a new budget, better backup and the reintroduction of the toolbar tool (now known as 'Insights'). The latter 3 parts would be of benefit to the UK, but one would wonder how much?

I noticed one post above commenting about the Financial Insitutions - I doubt many of them really care that much about the data export - it's a direct cost to them and probably doesn't bring in any significant business. It may just be us current users who cause it to continue to be provided.

Of course there is code clean up so it's a lot less buggy than 2005 and doesn't have that annoying patch that is required when installing.

So, would they bring it to the UK? The longer time goes on, the more work is required to regionalise the functionality because of the new features. The more work, the more cost. Economically, they may be able to do it, but this might mean a download-only version, to reduce costs of artwork, printing etc. It might not win them many friends at some of the retail stores.

One thing to note that it is possible to get hold of the US version in the UK (see FAQ Article 535), but you cannot directly convert from the UK to the US version (you have to go through hoops of exporting as QIF and then importing it). I doubt many people are prepared to do that, unless their files are small. The US product does work here (although the Nationwide integration would not) - I use this version.

I've been involved with the US and UK Money teams through the Microsoft MVP program for about 9 years now. In that time, I've seen 7 UK products come through. Each year I ask myself 'are there enough new or updated features that can justify upgrading?'. In many years, it's been a 'no'. Currently, based on the US SKU, it might once again be 'yes'.

For those of you wanting the history, see the latest article (April 25th) and the Open Letter to Microsoft.

Microsoft rebuffs PC Pro call for new Money

From PC Pro this week:

Microsoft has rejected PC Pro's calls for an updated version of Money in the UK,
despite huge reader backing for our campaign.

Microsoft has failed to release an update for the UK version of Money since 2005, despite the US receiving a new version only last year.

And the company has now restated its assertion that the four-year old software is perfectly suitable for customers' needs, even though all technical support for the product is set to end on 30 June.

In issue 164, PC Pro editor Tim Danton wrote an open letter to the software giant asking Microsoft to rectify this situation, and calling for readers who want to see a new version of the program to email in.

Click here for more information and the PC Pro campaign

Problems with repeated requests to update Money Plus

Over the last week, since the Money Plus SP1 update was released through smartconnect, there have been a small group of people whose computers will not properly update themselves with this patch.

Microsoft have been looking into this issue, and some ideas have been floated through newsgroups on how to solve this.

I've put together a couple of articles about this, which might help you get around the problem should it be happening to you. Unfortunately they're not all that straightforward...

1. FAQ Article 547 - this is a collection of a number of suggested solutions
2. FAQ Article 549 - a specific fix for CD installations only

If you're experiencing the problem, hopefully something in one of those articles will help you.

Money Plus SP1 Released

Money Plus SP1 was released via smartconnect, on March 24, 2008. This update contains the following fixes:

• Resolves a conflict with the DEP setting in Windows Vista and in some versions of Windows XP. This conflict caused Money Plus to crash (FAQ Article 512).
• Money Plus Activation now accepts all characters if Windows is set to use Large Fonts (FAQ Article 533).
• Activation improvements for firewall and proxy configurations are included.
• Activation improvements for non-administrator configurations are included.
• Performance is improved when you work with Money Plus data files that contain many "unaccepted transactions."
• Other fixes to improve compatibility with Windows Vista are included.

MSN Money February Site Update

When: February 25, 2008

The MSN Money February site update includes the following:

• No longer downloading Pending transactions (as of Feb 20).
• A chance to Preview of the upcoming replacement for the Basic Portfolio
• Switching to using EdgarOnline for SEC filings reports
• Some general performance and data quality improvements

Reference the What's new page for additional information after the site has updated.

MSN Money Site Update - 12 December

MSN Money December Site update

When: December 12, 2007 (changes will be seen this evening or the following morning)

Effect:

• During the update time access to My Accounts and the Portfolio Manager will not be available.
• You will not be able to update for accounts “using Yodlee” during this update window
  Microsoft Money customers may have problems signing into their Money data file “online”

Duration: Approximately 6 hours from 1pm to 7pm

The primary changes to the site include:

• Adding quote entry boxes to more locations on the site, so that you can look up quotes from more places.
• Creating a new Personal Finance section which will incorporate the old Banking and Planning areas
• Updated Tax information for the 2007 tax season
• New ETF Home page in the Investing area

Reference the What's new page for additional information after the site has updated.

Note: This update may now happen on December 13

Update 13 December: The update has been rescheduled to Monday December 17.

MSN Money October 2007 site update

When: Oct 11, 2007

Effect:

Some of the changes that will be occurring include:

Adding a Print Chart link to the basic charts. Deluxe charts already have a print option under its File menu.
Adding the Euro, Yen and GB Pound currency rates to the MSN Money and Investing home pages
Adding the 40-Year and Interest Only Mortgage rates to the Mortgage rates list
Instructional demos:
Stock Scouter: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/StockRating/srsmain.asp
Quick Watch List: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/quotewatchlist/overview.aspx

Aug 17 MSN Money site update

The MSN Money Network Status page is showing an update scheduled for August 17th

Changes include:

• Update to the Deluxe (Toolbox) version of the Portfolio for Windows Vista users only. This update will allow you to run it without having to add moneycentral to your Trusted Sites list.
• Improved data quality due to changes in data source and improved data quality monitoring
• Improved performance with My Accounts
• Improvements to the Basic Charts (not the Toolbox version).
  For example: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?iax=1&Symbol=MSFT (note that you won't see the changes until after the 17th)

Banking Services Update coming in July for Money users

The following information was posted to the MSN Money Network Page recently, about an update coming in July 2007:

When: Mid July (expected around 19 July)

Effect:

In mid-July, Money’s banking services will be updated. The update will affect customers who use Microsoft Money 2005, 2006, and 2007 and MSN Money My Accounts users. During the update, online services such as account balance updates and transaction downloads may not respond. After the update, you may need to set up your accounts again to regain access to online services.

To prepare, do the following:

• Record the name and password for all accounts that need access to online services.
• If you are using Money 2005, 2006 or 2007, create backup copies of all your Money files. In Microsoft Money, on the File menu, click Back Up. Note: it is a good practice to save copies in multiple locations for added security.
• Review the Microsoft Money Support Web site (http://support.microsoft.com/money) for additional information about backup, sign-in, and online services.

During the service update period you may not be able to sign into your Money file with full online access. You can access your Money file during the update by selecting the check box I want to sign into Money directly, without access to all online services on the Money sign-in page. This sign in issue will impact Money 2004 and older versions as well as the newer Money 2005, 2006 and 2007 versions.

Duration: The service update period may be a few days in duration.

The scheduled event will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

Changes in the latest update to the MSN Money site

On June 7, 2007, there was a minor update to the MSN Money website. The changes will be available late on this date or first thing Friday.

The changes are

• Improvements to the Quotes Watch List
• Organize your investments in accounts
• New columns such as High and Low Targets
• Redesigned Quote Detail page
• Stock Recommendations hosted by Motley Fool

More information can be found on the What's new page on the MSN Money site