Quicken for Win7

Nick Cramer wrote in news:20111223055000.068$ snipped-for-privacy@newsreader.com:

There should be good buys available for more recent versions of Quicken deluxe. Or you can buy the latest (Q2012) at Staples for a good discount. I never print checks, but Q12 is able to, and I believe the setup for printers is easier now than for your really old version. You should investigate whether the printer you want does the job for you.

Updating your data files (you know, you need the whole set of files, not just the qdf file, don't you?) to the newest format may require n intermediate conversion, but there is help on the Q website.

Oh, yeah, Win7 will NOT let you put data files in program or program- related directories. It is worth your time to read up on the requirements for where to put datafiles.

Is that a limitation of Quicken? Windows 7 will let you put any file you want anywhere.

Evan Platt wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Win 7 will not let a program change data in a program directory. Please google for details, and do let me know if I'm wrong.

Perhaps you have User Account Control set too high, but Windows 7 will let you change any file anywhere - with very few exceptions, but the Program Files directory is not one of them.

While it's possible for programs to write to the Program Files folder, it requires administrative privileges or lowering of the default security settings and is not considered a good idea.

Which is what I just said :)

Yes, that's true. Many programs simply won't install if the UAC is set too high.

UAC causes way more problems than it solves.

Evan Platt wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

For the average user, UAC is a GGOOOODDD idea.

No. See below.

No, it won't. Not unless you invoke Administrator credentials and insist.

Win7 protects a few key areas, especially the Root of any drive and the Program Files folder tree. Since Win2K, at least, Microsoft had told developers to keep data out of the program files hierarchy, but Intuit, for example, continued to keep the .qdf fileset and its BACKUP subfolder in Program Files\QuickenW. Windows 7 enforces this rule more effectively. Nick should find his data in a subfolder under C:\Users\Nick (or whatever his username is)\Local\AppData - I think. (Since my arrangement is unconventional, I'll let others give the details.)

Perhaps this paragraph from Windows 7 Inside Out, by MVP Ed Bott, Carl Siechert and Craig Stinson, will condense this complex topic: "So, for example, if an application, running in your security context, attempts to write to a location within %ProgramFiles%, the write will be redirected to a comparable location within %LocalAppData%\VirtualStore. When the application subsequently reads what it has written, the read request is redirected to the same virtualized location. As far as the application is concerned, everything is perfectly normal, and the operating system has prevented standard-user access to the %ProgramFiles% folder." For much more about Win7, I recommend that book.

(When I started dual-booting more than a decade ago, Win95 couldn't read NTFS and WinNT4 couldn't read FAT32, so I created a new folder on a FAT(16) drive that both could read and put my QuickenW folder there. I still use E:\QuickenW, which is far outside the C:\Program Files folder; my Q2012 .qdf file is happy there.)

Nick, since you are making the BIG jump from Q2000 to Q2012, you should be aware that Intuit changed their Quicken data file structure in Q2010. Now, the .qdf file is much bigger because it contains the data that used to be in the whole "fileset" that we had to deal with before (.qel, .qtx, .qph...) and those files are gone now.

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 2012 Deluxe R 3 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)

...Or your account is an administrator and you've disabled UAC.

I started with Quicken (including printing on a dot-matrix) back in the dear old DOS days! I have to call Dell and see about a printer.

So, contact Dell, Quicken and MS. Thanks for that, Han. ;-)

I don't know what this stuff does, where to find it or how to change it. I thought going from machine language to DOS was hard!

Click on Start. Type User Account Control Lower setting all the way down. Reboot.

UAC was specifically designed to help protect people who weren't computer experts from inadvertently causing themselves problems. Recommeneding that someone who doesn't even know what UAC is turn it off strikes me as not being the smartest thing in the world.

Thanks, Evan. I just looked at it. Kind of scary for me. I'll look again after I GET Quicken.

Robert Neville wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I'd second that. The rationale is that whenever your program files get corrupted/damaged, there shouldn't be any effect on data files. Keeping them well separated accomplishes that. In addition, if one needs to reinstall softaware or operating system, a separation between programs and data makes things safer. Lastly, backing up directories is easier than backing up individual files.

In line with what Ron White has posted, you could create a new folder under the "My Documents" folder and call it "Quicken", and store your Quicken data files there.

Thanks, Kobac. That sounds like something I could do! ;-)

Hi, Kobac.

Just for the record: Ron White is my younger brother. ;

OK, RC. :)