Microsoft Money Backups

Microsoft Money can go wrong at any point. It can happen to anyone.

Even with the tight control I try to have on my file, I once again needed to rely on my backup mechanism for Microsoft Money (i use the UK 2005 version).

On starting the Money file, the CPU went to 100% and stayed there. Money can be slow at times, but after 15 CPU minutes of it, I decided that this definitely was a problem with the file.

A quick repair, then the standard repair didn't seem to make much difference (apart from making the file a lot bigger - nothing too unusual). Time to go back to backups.

Fortunately, the mechanism I use meant I had a set of backups I could use. Once I identified that there was a possible problem, I usually take a copy of the backup file, so I can always use it again, and it won't get overwritten. In any case, I had others to use.

Restoring the backup seemed to fix the problem, and there was little data to add to the file (one transaction). I did notice a side effect, and this was with the data on my Pocket PC. When restoring the file, the account balance of a particular account then went out of sync. Fortunately following my own advice (FAQ Article 180) sorted this issue out.

All is now fine. I don't expect it will be the last time though :-(

Sorting the check register

Two articles yesterday:

1. Sorting the check register
2. MSN UK Money Update 19th January 2006

The first one is relevant to virtually all versions of Microsoft Money. In some versions, it is not intuitive to discover how to sort the register, and sometimes people have sorted it accidentally, and not known how to 'unsort' (well, 'resort') it back to the original way it was sorted.

The second article is more for posterity, as the problem is now fixed. However, some users are still seeing the issue. It does show how much MSN Money and Microsoft Money are interlinked, when the navigation is damaged by an online update.

Unfortuately, the problem with the navigation did take a while to fix - hopefully Microsoft will remember to get that working before making changes live in future.

MoneyLink Deluxe Edition?

David Kendall, from Ultrasoft who provide the MoneyLink software (allowing you to view your Microsoft Money data in Microsoft Excel), has posted to the Ultrasoft support forums to get feedback on a possible 'Deluxe' edition of the software.

In addition, there is a poll to ask whether people would be interested.

Here's what he says:


From time to time, people ask about MoneyLink Deluxe.

We had planned a -Deluxe and Business Edition-, with features driven by
user demand. But interest from the user community never materialized, so
it remains on the on the drawing board.

If you have any ideas for features we could add to a commercial (i.e.
not free) edition of MoneyLink, please post them here!

Where 'here' is the Ultrasoft support forum at: MoneyLink Deluxe Edition - Support Forum

Redirection in the site

The moneymvps.org site uses extensive redirection, as the FAQ items are retrieved dynamically from a database.

The tool I use use UrlRewritingNet.UrlRewrite, which provides me with permanent and temporary redirection, regular expression support, and a number of other things which makes it easier to provide 'nice' URLs (ie, without QueryString parameters).

The UrlRewriting.NET code has just had an update, which will be deployed onto the site shortly.