Did I break my QFX file association?

How about reinstalling Q03 to see if that will repair all of the broken pieces?

Your uninstall may have broken the link between the file extension and the correct Quicken application; as Laura says, you can probably re-establish the link by reinstalling Q2003.

The odd thing is that when Quicken starts, it attempts to determine if that link is correct, and if not, it asks you if you want Quicken to be the default app to handle QFX files ... but you do not mention seeing that dialog. ???

You can also re-establish the link without reinstalling, just using Windows Explorer

Tools > Folder Options > File Types

scroll to the QFX extension in the list and select it, then click "Advanced", select "Open", click "Edit", then enter the application file name like this

D:\Q2005\QW.EXE -X "%1"

where you substitute the path to your Quicken program for "D:\Q2005\".

I wasn't trying to open a QFX file from Windows... I was trying to update a bank account from inside Quicken. Q03 had been downloading and loading QFX data for that account on-the-fly.

Since other things appear to be broken too, I think I'll try reinstalling. Thanks.

Quicken asks the question when it first opens, before you do anything; so it is not related to what account you might plan to download from or what method you might chose for your download.

No, it never asked about the QFX association at startup.

Reinstalling Q03 did not fix the problem. Nor did uninstalling it and loading up Q05 which I also had. I had to manually repair the association in Windows to C:\QUICKE~1\QW.EXE -X "%1"

The -X being essential to get Web-connect accounts working again. How could the Quicken installation procedure not fix this?

So now I'm in Q05. In which everything I'd gotten used to, has changed once again. Sigh.

No, it never asked about the QFX association at startup.

Reinstalling Q03 did not fix the problem. Nor did uninstalling it and loading up Q05 which I also had. I had to manually repair the association in Windows to C:\QUICKE~1\QW.EXE -X "%1"

The -X being essential to get Web-connect accounts working again. How could the Quicken installation procedure not fix this?

So now I'm in Q05. In which everything I'd gotten used to, has changed once again. Sigh.

Sorry, I don't know why the previous message posted twice. Nor do I know why all the quoted material is missing. That comes with posting through Google, I guess.

Q2005 seems so much slower and bloated that Q2003, which was slower than Q2000. Is there an FAQ somewhere for users upgrading to Q2005?

How/where did you come accross the command line switch -X? Never heard of it before.

And I am wonder where the complete list of command line switches is hiding?

John mentioned it here. Otherwise I'd have been dead. I am still trying to figure out how a fresh install would not fix this automatically. Surely what I did must be relatively common, and the average person would never figure it out, their Web-connect would simply stay broken forever.

It's right out of of Windows Explorer's association for QFX and Quicken.

Tools > Folder Options > File types > (select QFX) > Advanced > (select "open") > Edit

Note the contents of "Application used to perform action".

John, you said I should have seen a message that no QFX association existed when I started Q03. I think I know what happened now.

Maybe I uninstalled Q00 while Q03 was open. I can't imagine doing this, but maybe I did. Then when I tried to use Web-connect in Q03, Windows complained that no app was assigned to QFX. I probably created one at that point, assigning "qw" but leaving off that all-important "-x" option. So at the next startup, Q03 saw the association even though it was wrong, so it was happy.

And when I installed Q05, I didn't really uninstall Q03- I just renamed the directory. This would have left the association in place, and Q05 did not re-create or correct it.

(I think.)