Quicken Deluxe 2009
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Quicken 2009 Deluxe Win CD Retail Small Package MIR.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Quicken continues to be great for home finance
I’m not sure why so many are having problems here. I’ve been using Quicken almost since it first came out. Frankly the original functions … with on-line banking added later … would be enough for me, but I use it for so much more.
I am able to keep track daily of retirement investments and periodically check on credit cards. I love Quicken and have since the beginning. Probably the most useful program I have on my computer (after Word, or similar)
The only reason I didn’t give it five stars is that their help files aren’t all that helpful.
It is a bit annoying having to update every 3 years, but when one considers value received it’s a price I don’t mind paying. Now, if it were annually, I would be ticked.
I have to suspect there may be a competitors’ campaign to discredit this great program.
1 Star Caveat Emptor - bank download problems, bad mutual fund prices downloaded
This is an update for Quicken 2009 problems that persist from the 2008 version. I keep getting a CC-501 error for accounts linked to Fidelity Investments and most of my bank accounts. Quicken help with technicians in India did not resolve the problem, despite sending them specific connection files to troubleshoot the problem. I went through every process suggested on two different computers including reloading software, disconnecting all bank and brokerage accounts and then reconnecting them. I even created a completely new quicken data file so as not to have potential contamination from older data. These are clearly software problems. Why some accounts are OK and others are not is a mystery. The Quicken folks have not fixed these problems since I see other reviewers are still making similar complaints.
Another huge problem that took an hour to fix was trying to download historical prices for stocks and mutual funds. The download contained inaccurate data that messes up all data analyses. One can delete the problematic data, but if you download historical prices again, the errors return. A good example would be money market funds valued at $1 per share that get revalued to $4.67 per share. I rechecked all the fund names carefully and all were correct. Thus, this is a software/server problem.
I am not the only one with such problems, so don’t risk ruining your financial records with Quicken 2009 unless they fix the problems and you see than independent tests by an organization such as Consumer’s Union gives the software a clean bill of health. Intuit should also produce a product patch for these problems and get it to registered users for this and prior versions.
3 Stars A Tad Buggy
My previous version was 2004 so just about everything was visually new to me. While it is pretty to work in (much more so that 2004) I do notice slight glitches here and there. They are only slightly annoying and I haven’t come across anything that prevents me from functioning.
Honestly, I expect more from Intuit when it comes to polishing up their finished products. (I am experiencing similar annoyances in QuickBooks 2009) For my money and my loyalty I would like to see them work harder to catch the pesky things before the product is launched to the general public.
1 Star Total Disaster
I’ve been using Quicken for about ten years. I have never been “in love” with it. Almost none of the intrusive bells and whistles are useful to me. Much of the design and organization is, in my opinion, poorly conceived.
Still, I’ve stuck with it. I managed to get it set up (with a fair degree of effort) to the point where it would automatically download most of my credit card transactions, and the reconciliation feature works.
You have to upgrade every three years in order to continue to get the automatic download feature, so I paid my money and downloaded Quicken Deluxe 2009. It seemed to autoinstall over my Quicken 2006 just fine. But when I tried to use it, the trouble started.
Initially, it would not open my data files at all, stating that I did not have “permission” to open the file. So I had to right click the specific file and use Vista’s “open as administrator” feature.
It then converted my file — destroying, in the process, almost all of my historical data. Good luck doing your taxes! I do have hard copies of my bank statements, thank heaven, but my credit card statements only go back six months online. I also have backups of my Quicken files — trouble is, I don’t have a program that will run them anymore, since Quicken 2009 deleted Quicken 2006.
And, oh boy, if you want a lesson in frustration, just try to get any customer support WHATSOEVER from Intuit. You get mazes of unhelpful computer page links if you try it online, and mazes of interconnected automated voice messages on the telephone.
And the look of the new Quicken 2009 screen is horrible, even if it worked. Giant fat tabs, as if they had decided to dumb the old version down from 14-year-old to 8-year-old. Every time I have upgraded Quicken, the new version was worse than the one before — almost all the “new features” are worthless while the useful features are buried and hard to find.
I am utterly disgusted. I assume that, if I want to spend many hours of hard work, I could eventually get Quicken 2009 working on my computer, but I don’t want to spend hour after frustrating hour of hard work just to get a personal accounting program working on my computer.
This is the last straw. I’m going to try a trial version of some other software, starting with MS Money, and see if it can convert my old data files. If not, I’m giving up and going back to pen and paper!
In short, Quicken 2009 is significantly worse than nothing.
1 Star Don’t know if it’s good or not
never got Quicken, returned to you as undeliverable and now it is out of stock
and he loved it. I didn’t like the language- they say “stupid” quite a bit. And I didn’t like the way the characters make fun of you if you don’t do well. And I didn’t like how there are movie-type scenes that they have to watch to get to the next game. You can’t skip over these. But he loved it and it did teach him basic chess skills. However, the game ONLY works if the CD is in the computer. After about a year, the CD got scratched and stopped working. Eventually, I decided to purchase LtPC 2 (see my even lower review for that!) for my son and to purchase this game again for my daughter, age 5. She will only play 2 or 3 of the games because she finds it so upsetting the way the characters make fun of her if she doesn’t do well. My daughter is a spunky girl who has no trouble standing up for herself so it must be quite upsetting for her to not want to play the game. I’m fed up with these games. I work hard to teach my children to have good character, good sportsmanship and good communication skills. I don’t need that compromised by a poorly executed video game. 
