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455 of 467 found the following review helpful:
 Quicken 2008 Deluxe on Win XP SP2 Sep 10, 2007
By The WB
I am a long time Quicken user, dating back to 1993. Lately I have used Quicken 2002 Basic ever since August 2001. Sitting on the fence post for several years, looking and listening to the horror stories that others have had with Quicken upgrades made me reluctant to upgrade. So what were my options with a program that is quickly becoming extinct and technical support that is now 3 years since evaporated?
First, I took Microsoft Money up on their trial offer - downloading Microsoft Money Deluxe and took a test drive of the program. 35 Megs of download file later, I installed the program. Installation was a snap. The program found my Quicken 2002 data file and converted it to Money - NO data errors as a result of the conversion (I had only 8 months of data in that file). After playing with it for 20 minutes, entering in several transactions, I didn't like the feel of how the program took my data - it felt like an older program that needed a major amount of work to get it up to date. It reminded me of my Quicken 2002 program with functionality. Needless to say - I dumped it - right then and there.
That left me with Quicken or a full blown accounting package (like Peachtree) as my remaining upgrade options. Quicken became my next choice - taking Quicken up on their 60 day guarantee - what did I have to lose?
Here are my experiences with Quicken 2008 Deluxe thus far:
Installation: For me, this was an upgrade from Quicken 2002 - the only version on my present computer. The installation program found Quicken 2002 and backed up the Quicken 2002 data files in a separate BACKUP file directory in Quicken. The program then uninstalled 2002 and installed 2008 - 10 minutes total time. The end of the CD install, the program looked for patches and program updates on Quicken web site and automatically downloaded and installed these patches - without problems. NO reboot required. NO freeze ups/crashes in the installation process.
Registration: I could not register my program on-line - I am using IE 7.0 and for some reason, even disabling my firewall, shutting off Norton anti-virus and accepting all cookies that Quicken recommends in the error message, I still couldn't connect to register the program. There is a service bulletin of how to disable registration screen that will nag you each time you start the program - I did that and to this time (two days now) - NO registration prompts.
Data Import: I have 8 different data files with data going back to 1/1/94. The oldest (and largest) has 15,000 transactions in it. All of my data files were imported into the Quicken 2008 format without any noticeable data errors. All of my files passed integrity and validation by Quicken before data was converted to 2008.
Bank Download: This was something I have not experienced in Quicken 2002. The banks were not really hot on this point back then when 2002 was released. I was with Wells Fargo bank at that time. Wells charged a monthly fee (like they did on everything) to connect with the Wells computer to transact any business through Quicken - I passed - the cost/benefit was not there for me.
That is not the case today. Banks and credit card companies encourage it! What I did fined were some entries of mine that didn't exactly match the banks entries were downloaded and added in to the accounts directly. More so in the credit card transactions area since who you buy from and the name of the entity processing the charge is different. I manually entered these items for years! Duplicates had to be removed and the accounts had to be reverified for accuracy. Now - I have set the download parameters to receive my approval of any changes first before automatically posting to my accounts. Two hours to straighten out that mess! Called: Learning curve.
Stability: I have not experienced any Quicken program loader issues, switch file issues, Splash screen logo issues, data corruption issues that others have experienced when installing and using Quicken 2008. The printing of reports works fine.
I had one crash with 2008 already, but the crash was of my doing. I tried to back out of an on-line transaction too quickly and the program couldn't release my Internet connection before I requested Quicken to perform the next process. After recovery, I went back and reperformed the task, this time being patient. When performing these tasks - be patient - the program eventually responds and releases control back to the user. If not - Quicken will crash! I didn't lose any data as a result of this crash.
In all - this version appears to be stable, or at least as stable as my Quicken 2002 version was.
Backups: ALWAYS! I backup each and every time I exit a Quicken session. The attachments also get backed up in a separate file directory for backup. I don't like the creation of separate file folders for each attachment file, since the program is not generating a separate file name for each attachment. The program does generate a separate file folder name each time an attachment is created. Seems odd to me, but that is the program.
Thus far - Quicken 2008 Deluxe was a good upgrade for me.
89 of 90 found the following review helpful:
 Don't Buy Quicken 2008 Dec 07, 2007
By Ken B
"Valley Guy"
I have been a Quicken user since the DOS days. In April I upgraded from 2005 to 2007 without too much fanfare. Everything converted fine and I was really pleased with the new attachment feature where you could scan or attach existing files to individual transactions. I began scanning all of my invoices and bank statements and shredding the originals. Then I bought a new computer and decided to order Quicken 2008 along with the new software to ensure it would function well under Windows Vista operating system. That's when all hell broke loose. Like other comments in this forum have pointed out there are many glitches in 2008 that they can't seem to resolve. Technical support is absolutely AWFUL. I have spent hours upon hours speaking with their support staff (I assume from the accents they are in India) and cannot get a resolution to my printing issues. When I try to print attachments they now print so large that two inches or more are lost on the right hand side and the bottom of the document. Also if the document is multi-pages there is no way to access anything except the first page. So all of my work scanning documents into transactions has caused me to basically lose the originals. The technicial attempted to charge me $24.95 saying it was not a conversion issue. That is until I pointed out I had no problem printing the same attachment in 2007... so how could it NOT be a conversion issue. Two technicians tried to tell me it was a printer issue and I should contact HP. I informed them I had already done that and since ALL other programs printed fine HP technical support had taken the stance that it is a Quicken issue. I further pointed out I have both an HP and a Canon printer and it doesn't print properly on either one. And FINALLY if you go directly to the scanned document and print from Windows it is also fine. The final solution from the last of five conversations I had with their technical reps was to uninstall 2008 and re-install 2007. Of course then I would have to re-enter and re-download everything from the past 3 weeks since 2007 can't read the 2008 data format. Then there is the issues with downloading from my banks. It brings in transactions that have been already reconciled from months ago. In most cases it matches it up with the original but you have to accept it to get it out of the lower window. I didn't have that issue when I went from 2005 to 2007. There are also some transactions where it doesn't see a match and you have to do a manual edit to match it up; or in some cases delete it. So I fully understand why many people are complaining about both the latest versions of the software and the absolutely HORRIBLE technical support available from Intuit. Like others here I think I will try MS Money and see how well it converts. I do not want to deal with Inituit technical support ever again.
69 of 69 found the following review helpful:
Nothing new - same old problems Oct 25, 2007
By Robert Randell
"kasrob"
If you already own an earlier version of Quicken within the last couple of years, save your money and don't bother with this. Quicken has added a lot of stupid "enhancements" that are cosmetic, and often make it worse - for example, the new way they highlight the transaction you are looking at, which partially blocks the neighboring transaction, or the "renaming" function, which is way too aggressive. This, for example, renamed a restaurant named Bay Ridge to ebay, and a parking facility called avistar into avis. This caused me much time on the phone with the merchant trying to resolve the charge until I figured it out.
Meanwhile, they have completely failed to repair some of the key problems that have existed for several versions, and have failed to add any meaningful or useful enhancements. I returned this version to Quicken. I would suggest that, unless you have a strong reason to switch, or are a new Quicken user, you save your money and work with the version you have.
The old days of Intuit being a customer focused organization which really understands the customers' needs and develops their software accordingly are long gone. Evidently, Intuit is internally focused and is not paying attention to their users any more.
70 of 72 found the following review helpful:
Not much of an upgrade Oct 06, 2007
By Susanna Hutcheson
"Copywriting for the Discriminating - - (...)"
I've used Quicken since the DOS days. While it always had some bugs, I've appreciated it's many features and ease of use. Quicken Deluxe 2008 is not a terrific upgrade, however. And before you buy it, you might want to consider a few things.
I went back to Quicken Deluxe 2007 and even had to roll back from R5. There were just too many bugs. Above all, not all the features worked with my PocketQuicken. Like the categories would not synchronize. Now, that may not be important at all to you. But other people were reporting all sorts of problems with that update. Unfortunately, some of them were not corrected with this new version.
Some of the features of Quicken Deluxe 2008 include:
Here is how My Savings Plan works:
* Compares actual spending to budgeted spending by category.
* Shows the difference between budgeted amounts and actual spending.
* Here is the exciting part: Quicken's My Spending Plan includes a roll over reserve which is equal to what is left between this month's budgeted amounts and actual spending plus unspent funds from previous months.
Other new features in Quicken Deluxe include:
* 529 education savings tracking.
* Collapsible left account navigation bar for increased work space.
* Simplified income and expense category selection - find transaction categories much faster in Quicken 2008.
* Tag transactions to give them more definition, similar to tagging web pages in social bookmarks.
* Quicken Billminder Gadget for Windows Vista users shows scheduled bills and transactions right on your desktop.
It does have seamless integration with Microsoft Vista and the interface is nice.
Quicken 2008 works with more than 5,300 online financial institutions, offers some helpful feature and interface improvements, adds new Bill Minder Gadget for Windows Vista users, TurboTax integration, free chat, and e-mail help.
Quicken 2008 is a minor upgrade with few new features; installation dumps icons on your Windows desktop.
If you've never used Quicken and need a good financial package, I always recommend Quicken. I've tried the others and found I always return to Intuit products. That is, after all, what they do best and all they do. They do it well. But they do put out buggy products from time to time. And I find their support lacking and slow.
A few useful changes include the new navigation bar, which makes it easier to jump between Quicken's main sections, such as Cash Flow and Investing. The register now has better categorization and tagging features, which may prove helpful at tax time.
If you have Quicken 2007 now, there's no need to upgrade unless you just want to. This is a very minor upgrade from 2007.
64 of 66 found the following review helpful:
Quicken 2008 Full of Bugs on my machine. Nov 17, 2007
By Dubbie
"Tom"
I have been a long-time Intuit user of Quicken (15 years)and I have always been happy with their programs. Trouble free and dependable would be the main words that come to mind.
Last year when using another Intuit product (Turbo Tax)that I've used for almost equally as many years, I could not install some of its features. I called Tech support but they could NOT HELP solve the problem either.
When I purchased Quicken 2008 and to upgrade from 2007, every thing went along well until the last few closing installation sections and the entire installation had to be uninstalled. Tech support again was of no help. They ran out of ideas after I spoke with 2 different levels of support and finally suggested I call Microsoft and see if they could help me. (My computer runs fine, is not out of date in RAM, ROM, hard drive space, memory, etc.
I decided to download Money 2008 Deluxe and there were no installation issues. Money transferred all of my 2007 Quicken information correctly and I was up and running with Money 2008 in no time!! I was very happy and Money was very easy for me to adjust to after so many years of Quicken.
I think that Intuit's copyright protections on Quicken and Turbo Tax were the cause of my installation failures with each of the above programs. I will be using Tax Cut for my taxes this coming year also.
NO MORE INTUIT frustrations for me!
I highly recommend Money 2008 over Quicken 2008.
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![Quicken 2008 Deluxe [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41rozdCQ-FL._SL160_.jpg "Quicken 2008 Deluxe [OLD VERSION]")
