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(More customer reviews)I am a seasoned user of "Microsoft Money" since 2001 and used Money-2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007 versions. On the subject of convenience and integration of multiple financial activities, Money (and for that matter even Quicken) does fantastic job.
However, with 4-5 years of usage of 'Money', my money file has grown to nearly 21MB. With this size, I am getting pathetic performance which is consistently annoying. I have a laptop with 1.6GHz dual core CPU and 1GB RAM, however very basic activities such as looking at monthly report, budget report etc. takes 2-4 minutes to display on the screen ! Even if I go back and try again, it will again hang for 2-4 minutes. I will be lucky if I get 'any' operation finished faster then 5 seconds/transaction. The problem is with specific version but the way Money is designed to store its information. There were some comments on improving performance by using Database to store information but Microsoft chose not to invest money on that.
Another annoying thing I observed with Microsoft Money is with every newer release you will get fancier but more BUGGY software. So far I found '2004' release best in the bunch but once you upgrade the version and make new entries it is not feasible to go back to earlier version.
Let me give you example that will explain the problem. Most common activity one will have is it to download data from financial institutes. Money will connect to these institutes and get the data. It will turn back in 2-3 minutes with newer data and status as 'done'. On the "Account List" you will see, for example, 5 new transaction and when you go into that account there is 'nothing' yet ! Reason being, data is still in flight but status shows 'done'. After 2-3 minutes you will get the data in the account. When you try to accept the transaction it will say "data is still in flight" but you got status 'done' ! In short, after getting data downloaded from the institute, you won't be able to 'accept' them for nearly 5-6 minutes. I am surprised to see Microsoft is selling software w/o testing such basic functionality ! FYI, I noticed this bug only in 2007 release.
I wish to have a better software for my need w/o losing existing data but Microsoft hasn't decided to have better (not just newer) version yet. Quicken seems to have similar issues and it doesn't allow any migration facility for me to move my existing data from last 6 years. I can just wish that Microsoft Money 2008 comes with higher performance and basic testing.
If you are a first time user, prefer to compare both Money and Quicken for yourself before locking your data in one of the them. With 'Money', once your file grows larger, performance deteriorate significantly.
One last point-- even with above limitations, I am better off using this software then not having it at all. Microsoft is doing a good job of marketing its positive points so I won't spend time on that.
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Microsoft Money 2007 Home & Business makes managing business and personal finances fast, easy and automatic with precise tools that guide you through business taxes, inventory tracking and online payroll alongside your personal credit, debt, investment and taxes, so you can spend less time on finances and more time with customers.
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