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)

Microsoft MVP Award 2009

I've just received this email:

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others.

It means that I am now starting my 11th year as a Microsoft MVP.
To be honest, I was surprised that I received it this year, as my posting to newsgroups was much less than in previous years. I've focussed more on the http://moneymvps.org/ website and this blog as I feel it has a wider reach. In addition, it saves me repeating answers to questions that I have answered before. I've actually been dipping into the newsgroups a lot less recently. I've a number of short articles to write for the website, and I am trying to overhaul some of the product pages to allow me to update them easier and for them to perform better (they retrieve data directly from Amazon, and I am finding their web services a little unreliable).
The MVP award also gives me an invitation to Redmond (which will be in March 2009). I didn't visit this year, and as yet I'm not sure whether I will next at present, due to the uncertain (nay, lack of) job. Sometimes fellow MVPs get to visit the Money team - maybe that'll be possible next year.

All quiet on the Money front

It's been a little quiet on the Money front recently. As there is no new product this year, Money Plus continues to be the one to purchase if you're looking for a replacement for an expired version of Money 2006 (expired on 1 September 2008) or Money 2007 (which will expire 2 years after first installation or 1 September 2009, whichever is earlier). Of course, if you don't use any online services, you should be able to continue with these versions.

There is still no news on other products for other countries – I personally expect there never to be any now.

Money Plus online services are due to expire after 2 years or by September 1, 2011 – if you bought Plus last year, then there is likely to be some news in the spring about upgrade paths. Microsoft could release a new version or may extend the time. They possibly could introduce a subscription model, but that remains to be seen.

I've not posted on this site for a month as my job situation is now very unclear, and I may be about to lose it (I don't work for Microsoft, so if you think I am in any way connected to the team, I'm not). However, this will give me new challenges (just finding a new one will be enough of a challenge – I'm after a .NET team lead position). I'll still post here as appropriate when I hear news on the Microsoft & MSN Money fronts though.

Glyn.