One Step Update, account ordering

Hi, John.

If you use the Password Vault you can store all the passwords there and have Q access all the FIs every time you run One Step Update. The passwords are not sent to Intuit or anywhere else; they are stored on your own computer - and password protected from disclosure or changes.

While it MIGHT be marginally more secure, I'm sure that I would not like to have to type in each password individually each time I run OSU!

RC

-- -- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX (Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.) snipped-for-privacy@grandecom.net Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010) (Using Quicken Deluxe 2013 R 12 and Windows Live Mail in Win8.1 x64)

Hello,

Is there any way to update the ordering of the FI in the One Step Update dialog?

Example, they are now ordered as follows

Amex Chase1 Chase2 Fidelity1 Fidelity2 ... Pentagon Federal

I'd like them to be ordered as follows:

Amex Chase1 Chase2 Pentagon Federal Fidelity1 Fidelity2 ..

The reason? I update the first four nightly, the remainders monthy. When typing in the passwords, I have to move the vertical slider bar down to find Pentagon Federal. Not a big deal, but annoying.

thanks

R. C. White said

Thanks RC,

I have been avoiding the password vault option for security reasons.

However, I tend to agree, the security reduction using password vault is marginal at best.

Particularly, if I admit, my individual passwords are less cryptic than I would like, since I have to remember them all.

I think I may start using the PV. thanks !

We've had this conversation before, RC, but I can't remember the details. Based on what you said above, I decided to try using the Password Vault. So I just created it.

Based on what I just tried, I *think* the following is correct: If I restart Quicken and then do OSU, it asks me for the password for the Password Vault. OK, fine--that's what it should do. But if I don't then shut Quicken down, the passwords that the Password Vault has supplied are still in effect. If I do OSU again, it doesn't ask me for it again. So the only way to turn off the passwords is to shut down Quicken, then restart it.

Is that correct? Or is there some way to turn off the password for the password vault without shutting down and restarting Quicken?

Hi, Ken.

Yes, I remember that conversation from several months ago. Other users contributed some comments, too, adding to what I (thought I) knew about the Password Vault. ;^}

The credentials persist for a while; I don't think we ever established the exact length of time. It seems to be more than an hour but probably less than 3 hours. But it also depends on what other things the computer is doing. I typically run OSU twice a day: soon after starting the computer in the morning (to get credit card and other transactions processed overnight) and again after the NYSE closes. In a few cases, I've been surprised to find that I didn't need to re-enter my PV password for the afternoon session. Perhaps I had run OSU earlier that afternoon to check on something and forgot about that.

Since there is rarely anybody here in my home office but me (my wife won't touch my "machine"), I am not as worried about security as many other users. When 10-year-old grandson Charlie comes on weekends, he uses his own Account and doesn't know my password.

RC

-- -- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX (Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.) snipped-for-privacy@grandecom.net Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010) (Using Quicken Deluxe 2013 R 12 and Windows Live Mail in Win8.1 x64)

We've had this conversation before, RC, but I can't remember the details. Based on what you said above, I decided to try using the Password Vault. So I just created it.

Based on what I just tried, I *think* the following is correct: If I restart Quicken and then do OSU, it asks me for the password for the Password Vault. OK, fine--that's what it should do. But if I don't then shut Quicken down, the passwords that the Password Vault has supplied are still in effect. If I do OSU again, it doesn't ask me for it again. So the only way to turn off the passwords is to shut down Quicken, then restart it.

Is that correct? Or is there some way to turn off the password for the password vault without shutting down and restarting Quicken?

Ah, that's what I had forgotten! I thought it stayed until you restarted Quicken.

The less the computer does, the longer it persists? Or vice-versa?

I seldom run it more than once a day: when I get up in the morning.

My wife shares the physical home office, but she doesn't touch my machine either; she has her own on a desk next to mine. And I don't allow visitors to use it either, at least not unless I am with them and watching everything they are doing (and even that is very rare).

My fears my be greater than necessary, but I worry about burglars if I leave the house and the computer is still on. On the other hand, a burglar is not likely to fool around with the computer; he will unplug it and steal it, thereby resetting Quicken.

Hi, Ken.

I don't know. If it asks for the PV password, I type it in. If it doesn't, I don't. ;^}

It usually asks. I've seldom really thought about the timing. After I start Q and WLM in the morning, I often leave them running in the background all day. I may run a dozen other apps - Media Center, Outlook, Word, Photoshop Elements, Google Earth... My 4 pm OSU almost always asks for the password. So I guess it times out some time between 8 am and 4 pm.

RC

Ah, that's what I had forgotten! I thought it stayed until you restarted Quicken.

The less the computer does, the longer it persists? Or vice-versa?

I seldom run it more than once a day: when I get up in the morning.

My wife shares the physical home office, but she doesn't touch my machine either; she has her own on a desk next to mine. And I don't allow visitors to use it either, at least not unless I am with them and watching everything they are doing (and even that is very rare).

My fears my be greater than necessary, but I worry about burglars if I leave the house and the computer is still on. On the other hand, a burglar is not likely to fool around with the computer; he will unplug it and steal it, thereby resetting Quicken.

Having set up PV, I ran OSU sometime around 4-5pm yesterday, and left Quicken running all night. I then ran OSU again this morning, around

9am, and found that the passwords were all still there! I wasn't happy to see that.

I backup Quicken H&B 2013 to an external HD every time I use it, usually before I close it. Once I do that, I have to reenter the vault password if I try to do an update or online command even if I have not closed Quicken. Try that and see if it effectively turns off the password for the vault.

Hi, Ken.

I rarely leave my computer on overnight, so I haven't had that experience with Quicken's OSU.

When I said it apparently times out "between 8 am and 4 pm", I didn't mean those specific hours, of course, but was trying to quantify how long a time might trigger the password reset - maybe less than 8 hours. Your experiment obviously disproves that theory. As usual, I ran OSU before 8 this morning. Now, at noon, I clicked the Update button again and it asks for the PV password. If I click the "X" to exit without entering the master password, the next screen lists all the accounts with a password box to enter each one individually. (To do that, I'd have to dig out the individual passwords, which I might have forgotten.)

You said "the passwords were all still there!" My expectation is that THE password is still there - the single OSU password, which opens the vault to all the others. I assume that's what you meant, too.

RC

-- -- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX (Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.) snipped-for-privacy@grandecom.net Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010) (Using Quicken Deluxe 2013 R 12 and Windows Live Mail in Win8.1 x64)

Having set up PV, I ran OSU sometime around 4-5pm yesterday, and left Quicken running all night. I then ran OSU again this morning, around

9am, and found that the passwords were all still there! I wasn't happy to see that.

So, four hours. In another 2.25 hours or so it will be about four hours for me and I'll try again, and report back.

Perhaps it has to do with what else you did between 8 and noon. I did nothing overnight

.

Yes, that's what I meant, but I also meant that the master PV password was still in effect so all the individual passwords were there, as

********.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try that after I try duplicating what RC did.

I tried, but nope. It still has the PV master password and didn't ask for it.

I just did (although I backed up internally to the hard drive) and my experience was the same as yours. It then asked for the PV password.

Perhaps I'll do this regularly from now on.

Hi, Ken.

That (Backup) might be the key ingredient! Habits formed 20 years ago, when both floppies and HDDs were much less dependable than now. In those days, I lost all of "today's" work many times from hardware or software glitches. So I formed the habit of frequent backups - after almost every entry in a Register - and I still do that. Not after every transaction these days, but several times in each Quicken session. And almost always after an OSU, even before I click on Portfolio to see how much money I made - or lost - on the market today. Perhaps that near-automatic Backup is what triggers my PV reset.

RC

I just did (although I backed up internally to the hard drive) and my experience was the same as yours. It then asked for the PV password.

Perhaps I'll do this regularly from now on.

Could be, I guess.

Ken

When do you backups if not at night? If you don't have a lot of disk space, I guess you could do it during the day. I have about 450 GB apportioned to 5 partitions with a second drive dedicated to backups. I back up one partition every night starting at midnight. This give me a weekly backup of every partition.

I run a separate differential backup of all files that have changed that day at 5:00 am and finally run Quicken OSU at 6:30 am. This way I can review any problems and my latest Quicken data starting at 7:00am. Probably overkill but just force of habit from when I was working before retiring 25 years ago.

Slightly off-topic, but two points:

1. When you back up depends on how you back up. If you use a service like Carbonite, backup occurs when needed, all day long.

1. I don't recommend backup to a second non-removable hard drive because it leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and backup to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.

In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept in the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if the life of your business depends on your data) you should have multiple generations of backup, and at least one of those generations should be stored off-site.

I agree with you on Carbonite and off site removable media. I don't use Carbonite but do use a WD USB drive that I did not mention in my original post. I run that once a month for each partition. For off site, I am waiting to buy a Tesla so I can hook my computer network up to a humungous drive stored in the Tesla's Frunk :-)

OK. My objections to backing up to an internal drive are removed if you also back up to an external.