I am a 3 year user of Money 2003 and Money2004 Small Business. Although I
have had minor problems, these products have been very stable and have
greatly enhanced my financial control. So I was very surprised to find that
MIcrosoft put out Money 2005 in its current state. I was receiving sales
hints every time I ran 2004 and so I upgraded yesterday. What a mistake! The
product has changed so much that nothing went smoothly and all of my records
, accounts and history were messed up. Their program just quit several times
on me without aborting messages - it just disappeared and I had to launch it
again. It pushes you hard to put out all of your information on the MSN
internet site even if you don't want to. It reconfigures you online access to
your accounts and creates new accounts at banks which you may have previously
told it to leave alone. There does not seem to be the same type of detail
configuration possible. Since I have other accounts that I manage for
children that I don't want to see in my financial statement this is a
problem. If you try to delete these new accounts it added, it wants to delete
all of your accounts at that bank.
This product has not advanced that state of control you have, it has reduced
it. I have wasted my upgrade fee on this one and will now be looking at other
alternatives. Too bad - I really liked the product through 2004 versions. I
removed the product and re-installed Money 2004. Thank goodness I had a
backup of my data because 2005 also changes the file structures. Be careful
if you try this upgrade.