OK I realize I'm using a 3-year old version of Quicken. I just haven't seen a compelling reason to update to their latest version & in fact I'm seriously considering abandoning Quicken altogether and going to Microsoft Money. But I won't burden you with my reasons for this here...
Anyway, since the beginning of the year (2007) I have experienced hangs on occasion with the One Step Update process, when downloading quotes & currency exchange rates.
When this happens, on my dual CPU system, I bring up Windows Task Manager (Processes List) and find that the QW.EXE image is consuming anywhere from
45-48% of the CPU as it churns and does nothing. My only recourse is to go to Windows Task Manager (Applications List) and do an "End Task" on the Quicken XG 2004 task.
I have found that this inability to download quotes tends to happen sporadically and that if it happens at all, odds are that it won't work for several hours (i.e. it appears to be a server-side issue).
My issue with Intuit here is that the Quicken program should handle a server-side issue more gracefully and that it shouldn't hang.
I know another person who is also using Quicken XG 2004 on a single CPU system and this problem has occurred to that person also. When it happens, his CPU pegs at 96-98%.
What a lame program... What a lame company...
I do remember reading something about how Intuit had some sort of plan to limit the ability of users to download financial data using old versions of the program to 3 years from the date of issue of the program to encourage (force/bully) users to upgrade (make more $). I am actually OK with this, and if this is what they're actually implementing here, they should (and the program should) handle it much more gracefully.