2006 Prem Thoughts

Twenty megabytes will "seriously impact" "many people?"

I don't think so, not in the days when 80 Gigabyte hard drives can be found in the bottoms of Cracker Jack boxes.

Tee, I totally agree ! I was so excited about QB 2006 (the portable file feature, the "faster" performance w/ the audit trail on, etc). but I'm so upset about the new problems - many you mention - the other being the "hosting/installing QB on the server" issue. Thanks for summing it up so nicely ! Terry

It takes more than a few hours of learning about a new version before you should start finding fault. Todays massive multi-gig hard drives can certainly hold this amount of data. As far as the ability to transfer data, the new portable feature creates files that can be e-mailed that are a fraction of the 2005 file sizes.

Again only a few hours. Come back in six months and let us know if you want to go back to the old way/

There is a single window option, you need more time with the program.

I'm still waiting for my version of 2006 to be delivered, but I will give it more than a few hours of use before I start ranting.

There is no hosting issue. For years users have been complaining about speed issues and limited file sizes. Now that a solution is at hand these same people are all pissy faced just because they have to learn a new step to install the product. QuickBooks is finally growing up, no more sandbox Tom foolery.

As mentioned in other posts, file size is not the same issue as it used to be with todays hard drives. The real question in my mind is how does this database structure affect speed, espcieally in multu user situations. I plan on monitoring this, I hope Intuit did their homework well.

Agreed. It makes no sense to me to remove features that allow some users quick access. And the "centers" aren't really that useful. IMO

Didn't use it myself, but could see where some people would use it, and will miss it. My clients will miss the "Related Activities" and "Reports" section of the navigator

Never has been enough customization in the toolbar, just got worse.

BTW, the 31,964kb file compressed to 2,724kb using the portable file option. That removes the problem of transferring files but it creates an extra step in that you can no longer just grab a file in Windows Explorer and drag it to removable media. You have to first open QB and create a portable file. I can live with that although, as I said, its an extra step. I still take issue with the uncompressed file size.

The centers can actually be converted back into genuine lists again. All you'd need to do is, open the center, expand the list and close the window. The preference to have the list expanded is sticky. So the next time you need to view the 'list' you'd just click on the customer/vendor/employee center and there you have it.

The "open windows list" is also still available in the program, but it's been turned off by default. Click on View --> Open window list, and you can get it back. Another UI preference was changed in 2006 as well: Desktop view. It used to be set to single window, and now in 2006, it's been defaulted to multiple windows. Apparently there seems to be two sides of the fence on this one and it's split decently down the middle. You either like or hate one or the other. Edit --> preferences --> desktop view --> view. If you've been using QuickBooks for awhile, check it out, and see which preference you like better. I personally like "one window", but I've been using QuickBooks for a long time and I'm an old dog (over 200[1] years old[2]) .

-Elw00de [1] get it,.. ? dog years? x 7 .. get it? :^) [2] kind of like a young Yoda.[3] [3] : the image of Yoda running around as a teenager cracks me up: Yoda's Mom: "... Yoda ... get in there and clean your room and stop levitating your father around the house" , Yoda: "Awww, Mommmm"

Before I start, I have to say I had almost all the same reactions at first.

Had a little bit less than doubling of size here. I don't transfer files that often, so the size doesn't bother me too much. And when I do transfer, it's over a wired ethernet line, so I suppose it makes it matter even that much less for me personally. As of now, I'd say I'll take that increased file size, as I definitely like the performance gain. Haven't seen any windows doing that slow trek accross to 100% for reports and the like, so I like that.

I too didn't like the removal of the lists, but have found (like the poster elsewhere in this thread) that it is fairly simple to get them back looking like they did and along with resizing the windows, it looks about the same. And with the one button push it's nice to get quick access to some of the more advanced info.

Never used that so "No Comment." I have pretty much always just set up

Agree here completely.

Yep, said sayonara to the homepage also. I would guess the little flow charts would be helpful when you are first getting started and have no experience in keeping books. Much easier just setting up your activity in the Icon Bar and picking from there. Would think that even people brand new to keeping books would prefer this after a couple weeks or so.

Anyways, there is my 2¢

They have been doing this since the 2000 version, with every version. It seems like they will let any glue-sniffer change the user interface in an ad-hoc way. These people have never had to use software to run a small business to realize that people are creatures of habit and after a while doing something on a computer becomes automatic when a person has to do a dozen things in one minute.

They completely messed up the bill window at some point making it about 10 times more time consuming for someone to unlearn old sequences of keystrokes and learn new ones, in addition to mistakes, aggravation, etc. And what they replaced it with was as inane and stupid as any unskilled person could come up with.

The file size issue may or may not be a problem. Enterprise 2005 converted a 180MB file down to 85MB. Apparently the database they're using in 2006 is not the same with the one in Enterprise. I'll be looking forward for any reports from people with 100MB, 200MB or larger data files.

It's unlikely that Intuit hired any knowledgeable people now to do something useful with Quickbooks. They may have done some improvements but the early signs are that they, again, care more about market manipulation than offering a decent software product for small businesses.

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You don't have much credibility here because you have never found much of anything wrong with Quickbooks, much less calling it "sandbox tomfoolery" before the so-called "vastly improved" 2006 version.

You've never found anything incomplete, inefficient or inadequate. You've always responded to any comment about QB's lack of features, the horrid database structure included, with a suggestion to buy something costing $10,000+ and that Quickbooks' users would never have a need for that feature the poster would complain about, and that Intuit always knew better.

You're now Block Junior. Maybe someone at Intuit has promised you too to email you discarded meeting minutes but please do us all a favor and cut the propaganda crap because it's too obvious.

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Well at least when someone say "Whos your daddy"? I'll know how to answer.

I don't know about you but I've met too many people, and I'm sure others have also met them, that crap in their pants when they talk to someone from an upper level corporate management cesspool of idiots. They think they just talked to a god. The subservient attitude with Intuit's bad product quality and the incessant praising of its inadequacies is too obvious from a couple of people in this group.

They added a Vendor History feature in 2006 and they tout it as an improvement. It's the same crippled report that was always there only now it comes with a ton of additional bloat through the Vendor Center. And guess what... they still can't show Vendor History by Job which means it's useless for construction businesses, which they use as their main company example. Idiots.

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