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Intuit Disables Features in Quicken To Force Upgrades

Posted by michael on from the dog-bites-man dept.

Numerous people submitted a blurb from BoingBoing about Intuit disabling features in older versions of Quicken. Why the BoingBoing submitter and Mr. Doctorow are so upset about this I don't know; when you buy software that's dependent on a for-profit company to keep working, what do you expect?

4 of 617 comments (clear)

  1. I work at a bank by aardwolf64 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work at a financial institution and am in charge of support for PFMs (Personal Finance Managers) including Microsoft Money and Quicken. The reason that Quicken is sunsetting support for online banking in 2001 and 2002 is that your online transactions actually come through Intuit's server, which accesses your bank server on your behalf. You can still use the older versions of Quicken, you just can't download transactions.

    Microsoft Money on the other hand still works since it connects directly to the bank's OFX server. Although my bank only supports 2001 and newer, we have users that are actually connecting with Money 1999 with no problems.

  2. You don't have to upgrade by sd790 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I received a similar letter a few weeks back and immediately called my bank to find out if this was really going to affect my ability to use their online banking services. They told me that this will NOT cause any problems and I DON'T have to upgrade to continue using their online banking system. The only thing that I'll lose is my ability to Intuit's help desk, which I'll never do anyways.

    Call your bank and check. You probably don't have to bother with it.

  3. Try MoneyDance by czei · · Score: 5, Informative

    I got fed up with Intuit's bug-ridden software and abysmal tech. support in 2003 and switched to MoneyDance. The GUI isn't as slick, but I ended up spending way less time on finances because the program's well-written and well supported. Instead of talking to tech. support people on the other side of the world who are just reading from a support database you can get email back from one of the developer's in a couple of hours and your questions are answered quickly, accurately, and for free.

    I looked at some open source programs at the time, but the big draw for me to MoneyDance initially was it will automatically download transactions from my bank, and there's a great matching algorithm to stick the transactions in the right budget category.

  4. Re:Whatever happened.. by tdemark · · Score: 5, Informative

    I used to work for Intuit UK and they were bastards.

    Intuit in general are bastards.

    Any time you try to import a text transaction file (QFX), the program calls home to see if the organization you downloaded from paid its "Quicken Tax".

    When I called tech support because I was getting an error message when trying to import, Intuit told me that "my bank doesn't support Macs", even though I already had the QFX file.

    Me: "I don't understand. I have the file, but Quicken won't import it."

    Tech: "Your bank doesn't support Macs."

    Me: "Why does my bank need to 'support' Macs? I have the text file, but Quicken won't import it."

    Think how ridiculous it would be if Excel wouldn't import a CSV file until it called back to MS to verify that author paid an "MS Tax" (insert DRM/Palladium comment here)?

    Anyway, I got around the issue by opening the file and changing the "Institution ID" to a bank that has "paid the tax". By simply changing a few characters in the file, Quicken happily imported it.