 [Larger view] | Microsoft Money Standard 2005
| ||||||||
Average user rating:  | |
 Stick w/ 2004 | |
| I've had 2005 on the shelf for a while and finally upgraded from 2004. I've been happy w/ every upgrade since 2001, until now. First, it doesn't upgrade the 2004 installation, it installs separately. In the end, this turns out to be the best feature of 2005, because when you inevitably uninstall 2005, you don't have to reinstall 2004!
The most annoying items for me were: 1. The toolbars at the top take too much space due to an internet navigation toolbar that cannot be turned off. Every other MS product has fully customizable toolbars, what happened here! 2. In many cases, when clicking on something to get to some aspect of your financial info, you are first taken to an MSN MoneyCentral website, which is very intrusive! 3. There is a more complex and nested arrangement of menus for features which makes it harder to find and get to stuff. I didn't use it much beyond that. #2 was really hard to accept. | |
| Incredibly Disappointing "Upgrade" | |
| First, let me say that I have been an avid fan, user, and recommender of the Microsoft Money products since I first became acquainted with them after the 1998 version release of the product.
Words cannot express how greatly disappointed I am with the product itself and Microsoft as a company for unleashing this grossly inept, buggy, and endlessly frustrating piece of trash upon its previously contended users. I have spent countless hours trying to fix problems that Money 2005 has created in my personal financial records, and even more hours with their support people communicating with them via e-mail (a journey in frustration itself - you have to format your messages a certain way for it to even get to them). I am, as of today, sending a request to Microsoft for a refund of my purchase price and am going to try one of the Quicken products. I've never even used ANY of the Quicken products before, and am already convinced that they are surely head and shoulders above this latest version of Money. Shame on Microsoft for thinking that nobody would be willing to jump ship and take their business elsewhere. | |
| Bad move Microsoft, I bet you loose a lot of customers... | |
| I too have been a Money user for many years. I actually started with Quicken and really liked it but switched to Money because my bank at the time didn't support Quicken for on-line banking.
I have been using Money now for about 6 years and learned to like it a lot. So it was a no-brainer to upgrade when the 2005 version was released. Did I say no-brainer? That turned out to be appropriate because my impression was anyone with brains would avoid this upgrade! This was a down-grade! Many features I'd grown used to (like Money Express) were gone! It's internet update REQUIRED you register through a .NET passport and was very slow compared to previous versions. I will continue to use 2004 and wait to see what the 2006 version has. If it's more of the same non-sense, I'll switch to Quicken! |
