How to stop popups?

I checked the box in "properties" to indicate that I don't want the pop ups with the advertising, yet the popups and advertising persist. Is there another box to check with something like, "Yes I really meant what I said when I checked the other box"?

Bob

Reply to
RobertM
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Are you really sure, Bobby Boy?

Reply to
Allan Martin

There are some announcements you cannot avoid. I do not know if the install question about this is different than the Preference, or if you are the one who will reinstall to see this (and then report back).

Mike Block - QuickBooks Tax Cut C.P.A. Intuit paid me to make QuickBooks better!

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Reply to
Mike Block - Tax Cut C.P.A.

I'm not going to do a reinstall in order to determine if it can be stopped at that point. Intuit will push all this stuff during installs and updates, and during updates there is no way to shut it off. I can live with that but it's annoying to have them keep spamming me after installation to sign up for payroll and credit cards with them when I have other services to handle these things and I'll never use Intuit for this. Perhaps I should write to them and ask them how to fix this "bug" in their software but I don't suppose they would care about the user's preferences. Intuit seems to be much happier when their customers don't like them.

Bob

Reply to
RobertM

Intuit would be much happier if you were not one of their customers.

Reply to
Allan Martin

Hi Robert:

It is popular to think that big companies do not care about users, especially when they get extra money by disregarding user wishes. However, Intuit is very successful precisely because it has always been obsessive about getting and using customer and potential customer feedback. That is the exactly why graduate business schools and business writers have long studied it.

Intuit began after Scott Cook listened to his wife complain about spending too much time paying bills and reconciling checkbooks on a kitchen table. Today the table is in the Smithsonian because Scott kept listening (and taking yellow-pad notes) while watching countless students, computer experts, accountants, women's club members and people off the street use and try break a pre-release Quicken and competing programs. It then took computer experts an hour to install competing programs and print a check. Scott and his partner kept changing Quicken until NOVICES could install it and print a check in 15 minutes. That is how they invented the now industry-standard usability tests. The tests quickly evolved so Intuit engineers work with alpha (inside) testers, taking notes while recording eye, keystoke and mouse actions and conversations. They also still ask alpha and beta (outside) testers to do things without saying how (based on my limited alpha and extensive beta experience), hoping we break programs and show them new ways to use them. See Inside Intuit at

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and elsewhere for "How the Makers of Quicken Beat Microsoft and Revolutionized an Entire Industry." The full story may eventually say how Intuit avoided anti-trust problems and sandbagged Microsoft, by holding back big QB improvements until M$ released Small Business Accounting (a so called QuickBooks Killer). QB sales then went from 85% to 95% of the small business accounting program market at retail!

A major recent article lauded long-time Intuit CEO Steve Bennett (Steve_Bennett at intuit.com) as one of a new breed that run companies based on customer feedback. The author seemed not to know that using such pre-release activities, to improve programs and business operations. was Intuit practice long before Steve. If the infinite combinations of PC hardware, software, file size and users reveal problems, after program release, then many at Intuit work around the clock. I know this from many fast personal email responses from Steve, QB Senior VP Brad D. Smith (Brad_Smith at intuit.com) and founder Scott Cook (you can easily guess his email). I recently saw a bug fixed ONE business day after I wrote Brad (with public release TWO business days later). This happened though we both knew that not fixing it was in Intuit's short-term financial interest (up to

5,000 users might have paid Intuit to get the state unemployment returns it did not offer when an add-on vendor created his now broken product, even though he was not using the approved software development kit [SDK]).

Obsessive Intuit listening let me be among the first to serve on the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Advisory Council and ProSeries Advisory Council. It also turned some of my many email, newsgroup and web campaigns into the Accountant Feedback Center.

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shows
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has a long way to go, but it has long let you vote on what others want and create new topics on which others can vote. I did not expect Intuit to link this to most in-program and web feedback. I also did not expect Scott Wilder use the
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QuickBooks Community site to distribute my QB Shortcuts, Speed Up and Errors web pages, with his well-categorized and barely censored forums. This copying occurred after Intuit censored my posts that referenced them in answering user questions. It also censored my post of Intuit email addresses, but soon gave us an email address for QB2006 / QBE6 speedup problems. That is why, after posting this and related news groups 7,000+ times, only habit brings me here. Now we can RSS the QB Community site so I may not be here long. Please be aware that I am an independent Florida small-business CPA, with 5 assistants locally and more remotely. Therefore, having Intuit pay me less than $1,500 a year does not affect my independence. Please also be aware that Intuit appointed me to my first Advisory Council long after I led a protest that may have cost it $30 million. While on this Council I briefly called for a public boycott of TurboTax, though the issue did not affect the ProSeries (TurboTax) I used. Steve later wrote, "Please keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong." Does that sound like it comes from someone who does not care? Actually, Intuit so values long-term relationships over current profits that it seems not use its QuickBooks, Quicken or TurboTax semi-monopoly to increase prices, though it earns far less on investment than Microsoft does.

Please use the Accountant Feedback Center, or direct emails to Steve and Brad, to protest any QB ads and pop ups or to ask for anything you want. or do not want. Members of my ProAdvisor Council and many others made pop-ups our #1 issue. That is why (though it may take years) QB2006 / QBE 6 have a pop-up install question and an Edit, Preferences, General option to "Turn off pop-up messages for products and services" in ." That also is why Brad heard loudly from me when new QB versions bugged us with year-end tax reminders. Finally, it is why Brad, Steve, Scott Cook and Scott Wilder will now get copies of this, though some of my Accountant Feedback suggestions fall flat with other users.

You are wasting your time if you only post protests to this newsgroup.

Mike Block - QuickBooks Tax Cut C.P.A. Intuit paid me to make QuickBooks better!

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"RobertM" wrote in message news:e03okb$bjil$ snipped-for-privacy@news3.infoave.net...

Reply to
Mike Block - Tax Cut C.P.A.

In this day and age with the popularity of pop-up and spam blockers, I'd guess that Intuit knows how most customers feel about this type of thing. I'd bet Intuit uses pop-up and spam blockers themselves to stop advertising from other companies. If Intuit isn't aware, then they are really out of touch with the world. You are correct, this is not the place to plead my case so I took your suggestion and wrote to them. We'll see if it makes a difference.

Bob

"Mike Block - Tax Cut C.P.A." wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

Reply to
RobertM

Hi again Robert:

You already made a difference! It took Brad Smith less than 9 minutes to receive and read my long post to you and write the very positive response below (this is a Sunday evening and we have a 3 hour time zone difference). Someday the Intuit story may show how quickly Brad responds to unsolicited outsider emails, while very successfully running a billion dollar lead division of a major international public corporation. Now you can see for yourself why I am so sold on Intuit and so sure everyone else will be heard as well.

Mike Block - QuickBooks Tax Cut C.P.A.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Smith, Brad D." To: Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 7:16 PM Subject: Re: How to stop popups?

Reply to
Mike Block - Tax Cut C.P.A.

Robert,

I'm not sure what version of Quickbooks that you are running, however, we just recently upgraded to Enterprise, and the first several releases had problems with not being able to clear out the reminder messages that 'pop up' when you first open the program. Every time you opened the program, you would have to select the option 'Do not remind me about this again' many times to clear out all of the popups.

However, R5P fixed this problem, and since manually downloading and installing the new patch, we haven't had any more reminder messages at all. If you are running QBES, or if you want to follow up with your version and check this out, I have this info for you:

I'm sure that you are aware, but just in case you aren't, while QB is running and active (no company file needs to be open, but it can be) press F2 and view the info box that appears. In the upper right hand corner, it will show you which release you are using. If it says anything other than R5P, download the latest patch on the QBES website. The R5P patch program doesn't always complete the full install from the last patch file. Check the F2 dialog box and ensure that R5P is listed after the install. If not, simply run the patch file again.

I hope this helps.

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ITguru

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