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Microsoft Money 2004 Premium

Microsoft Money 2004 Premium

List Price: $79.95
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Former Quicken User
Review: As a Quicken user for over 10 years, this product is far superior to Quicken 2004. The interface is different and takes a few days to get used to, but is relatively intuitive.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Moved From Quicken
Review: As I've been a Quicken user from the beginning for my personal finances and investments, I decided to upgrade to Microsoft Money 2004 Premium for the following reasons.

1. Quicken has not shown me and upgrade that is worth buying since I purchased Quicken 2002 deluxe. If the new quicken is going to do the same as my Quicken 2002 Deluxe, why upgrade and that's all I see in the new Quicken.

2. Free stuff from Money 2004 that Quicken can't match. Such as a free year of your credit report monitoring service. Two free years of online bill paying are just a few.

3. Better financial and stock watching information and software.

These are a few reasons why I moved from Quicken. But don't be fooled believing that Moneys interface is like Quicken, It's not. It will take Quicken user some time to become familiar with the way Money works and sometime to setup Money to your liking. But in all It's worth the change for a better product.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: better than the Money/Quicken 2005 crop
Review: Been using since 2003 because it has better customized graphing/reports than Quicken.

MS Money 2004, despite its major and minor quirks, is at least still usable everyday without much fuss.

The debt planner is fairly useless except to schedule payments, and to "guess" when you'll be out of debt, unlike Quicken 2003. Mortgage accounts don't allow you to switch between arbitrary frequency of payments per month, as well as always predicting the WRONG interest/principal payment split.

However, I still like the fair ability to customize; from page displays to reports although I prefer Quicken's more modal interface over Money's free flowing "browser" interface.

Looking forward, Money 2005 is a horrible new product that doesn't carry over any of the "it just works" philosophy of 2004 especially with the even more "browser" interface that leaves huge tracts of white screen space (in advanced mode) compared to 2004. Combined with the huge amount of complaints about Quicken 2005's new 'forced' "upgrade" features, Money looks golden.

Stay with 2004.. it's the lesser of many evils. Until maybe 2006.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Nothing Like Quicken
Review: Beware Quicken users!

I've been using Quicken since 1991 but thought it was time for a change. I've read some good reviews of Money and have never had a problem learning new software, so I took the plunge and bought Money 2004.

What a mistake! Here is what I liked least:

1. The interface is absolutely nothing like Quicken. Figure on spending hours to acheive a basic familiarity.

2. It's a typical Microsoft product. That means the software tries to outsmart you rather than letting you work the way you want to.

3. The interface is way too cluttered. At every turn Microsoft is trying to sell you something - insurance, mortgages, baked apples, whatever. It's like working on a billboard.

4. To use Money you have to sign up for various external services, like Net Passport or whatever it's called - a real pain.

5. There's no Quicken.com where you can put your accounts on the Web.

All in all, a tremendous disappointment. Under no circumstances would I advise anyone to switch from Quicken.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: money review
Review: I agree that Money is a great product. I started on Money 98 and have upgraded to 2001, 2003 and just bought 2004. I have tried Quicken, I actually found Money easier to use, but I have spent hours tweaking its FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE interface. The best thing about Money is the integrated billpay however, the billpay is great, and with premium it is free for 2 years so that in itself is worth 120 dollars. Sure its Microsoft, but face it...it is a microsoft world. Let me know when Quicken has a word processor and spreadsheat program that is the standard for use in the world. Hey pal, sorry you have to take 2 seconds and get a passport (or a hotmail address).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Microsoft Money isn't worth it!
Review: I bought Microsoft Money Premium because of the reviews listed here, was a former Quicken user. Sorry, but I had nothing but problems with it. Couldn't get it to connect to my E*Trade account or my Fleet bank account, only Fidelity. Their solution was to have me talk to E*Trade, yah right! Problem is on Microsoft Money's side as my Fidelity account has no problem interacting with Fleet and E*Trade. Also documentation was terrible and I'm an IT person that writes software for a living.

Bought Quicken 2004 online and had it running and connected to all accounts in less than an hour, no problems. Save yourself the headache and get Quicken 2004. Have had no problems whatever running it on Windows XP SP1.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Microsoft Money isn't worth it!
Review: I bought Microsoft Money Premium because of the reviews listed here, was a former Quicken user. Sorry, but I had nothing but problems with it. Couldn't get it to connect to my E*Trade account or my Fleet bank account, only Fidelity. Their solution was to have me talk to E*Trade, yah right! Problem is on Microsoft Money's side as my Fidelity account has no problem interacting with Fleet and E*Trade. Also documentation was terrible and I'm an IT person that writes software for a living.

Bought Quicken 2004 online and had it running and connected to all accounts in less than an hour, no problems. Save yourself the headache and get Quicken 2004. Have had no problems whatever running it on Windows XP SP1.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: If Only I Had a Chance to Use It
Review: I got a copy of MS Money 2004 for Christmas as requested. I've used MS Money 98 for a long long time, and I figured it was time for an upgrade.

I installed the program, and installation went perfectly; no problems. However, as soon as I tried to launch the program I got an error message, and the program wouldn't even run. I tried a few things (I consider myself quite computer savvy), but none of my solutions worked. I still got the error message.

My only choice was to beg for the mercy of Microsoft. Since I wasn't about to pay for the expensive phone call to talk to a live person, I decided to use their online assistance. So far I've dealt with two different technical assistants, and neither one of them seem competent. The second individual is actually quite condescending. Hopefully I'll get a third helper that's nicer.

I'm still receiving "help" from Microsoft, but none of it is working. I've NEVER had any problems with ANY other software working on my PC, so I know it's MS Money 2004.

Until Microsoft can fix their faulty program, I rate MS Money 2004 1 star. The only reason I'm even giving that one star instead of none is because I really liked MS Money 98, and I figure it couldn't have gotten any worse (If it worked).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: If Only I Had a Chance to Use It
Review: I got a copy of MS Money 2004 for Christmas as requested. I've used MS Money 98 for a long long time, and I figured it was time for an upgrade.

I installed the program, and installation went perfectly; no problems. However, as soon as I tried to launch the program I got an error message, and the program wouldn't even run. I tried a few things (I consider myself quite computer savvy), but none of my solutions worked. I still got the error message.

My only choice was to beg for the mercy of Microsoft. Since I wasn't about to pay for the expensive phone call to talk to a live person, I decided to use their online assistance. So far I've dealt with two different technical assistants, and neither one of them seem competent. The second individual is actually quite condescending. Hopefully I'll get a third helper that's nicer.

I'm still receiving "help" from Microsoft, but none of it is working. I've NEVER had any problems with ANY other software working on my PC, so I know it's MS Money 2004.

Until Microsoft can fix their faulty program, I rate MS Money 2004 1 star. The only reason I'm even giving that one star instead of none is because I really liked MS Money 98, and I figure it couldn't have gotten any worse (If it worked).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Thumbs Up
Review: I have been using Money for quite sometime and I find it to be a useful tool in all aspects. Whether you want an in dept financial standings or a brief one. Money has it and you can even sync it with MSN Money on the web.


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