password protect program

The most secure way is to get TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt uses secure encryption. Most "password protection" programs (including Quicken's built-in password function) don't.

Thank you for your prompt advice. I thought Quicken might have had an option somewhere to password protect itself for program entry, but I understand what you say.

Ivan

From the Quicken Help File: 1.. Choose File menu > Open to open the data file you want to protect with a password. a.. What does a file password protect? A file password protects only the current file. Make sure that the current file is the one you want to assign the password to.

CK - He was asking about how to password protect Quicken ITSELF ("Is there anyway to require a password to START the Quicken program?", captial emphasis mine), not an individual file from within the program itself which of course requires the program to ALREADY be running.

Fair enough, but it only makes sense to protect the Quicken data file, not Quicken itself.

You wouldn't protect your Word documents by password-protecting Microsoft Word. Likewise, Quicken's password protection protects the data file (which is where the private information is stored) rather than the program itself.

I still believe it's more secure to just keep Quicken in a Truecrypt-encrypted drive, though.

If you want to restrict access, you could always rename qw.exe to something innocuous like orderchecks.exe, then open the program through windows explorer. That would not fool a determined geek, but would many others.