Turbo Tax Activation Incompatible with Caspar Backup
steve holmlund
I am writing this email after several hours of frustration
with TruboTax Activation and Future Systems "Caspar"
program. I wanted to express my frustration so I can move
on, and to let people know about the problem.
My Backup Method: Three 80GB drives
---------------------------------------------------
I have two removable rack mounts for a Primary and Secondary
IDE hard drive. The rack mounts allow easy swapping of
drives. Weekly, I use "Caspar" from Future Systems to copy
my Primary 80GB hard drive to another hard drive which I
insert into the Secondary IDE as a non-booting drive. After
copying, I then remove the original from the Primary IDE and
swap the copy into the Primary IDE. I label the original
with the date and put it on the shelf as backup. I have
three 80GB hard drive which I weekly rotate this way.
<I have 7 systems in the house - all having hard drives on
rack mounts using "Cable Select" to determine master/slave
configurtion on the IDE bus. I do not backup all 7 - only
my primary system and my wifes system.>
TurboTax 2002 Activation Policy:
--------------------------------------------
Andy at tech support made it clear that the activation is
limited to one hard drive. So, my swapping hard drives will
not work. PERIOD!! No WorkAround..
My Choices: Stop Backup Up - Dedicated Drive for Turbo Tax
- Switch to Microsoft - Tape Backup
------------------------------------------------------------
I require backups. Drive hardware dies (I have had one die
in the last five years), and more often software corrupts
the drive data (I figure about 1 in 100 power downs without
running shutdown break the drive. IE, 50 will be ok but 51
may make the drive non-booting and require rescue.)
Dedicated hardware for a particular program is very
unpalatable, and will quickly lead to chaos if other
software manufacturers follow suit. So the dedicated drive
is out.
Switching to Microsoft is my current preference. Two years
ago I compared Quicken and Microsoft and settled on Quicken,
but not being able to backup is a show stopper.
Tape backup is possible, but it takes 5 hours for the disk
drive backup to complete. I don't think tape can come near
that speed, so the full backup time would be impossible.
Leading to an incremental backup strategy which makes things
more complicated, and my policy is "Keep It Simple Stupid"
(KISS).
thanks for listening
steve holmlund
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Ernie Klein
> TurboTax 2002 Activation Policy:
> --------------------------------------------
> Andy at tech support made it clear that the activation is
> limited to one hard drive. So, my swapping hard drives will
> not work. PERIOD!! No WorkAround..
>
> My Choices: Stop Backup Up - Dedicated Drive for Turbo Tax
> - Switch to Microsoft - Tape Backup
Look in 'alt.comp.software.financial.quicken' for many more
horror stories, It's even worse than Steve notes - buy a
new computer - hard drive crash = hours on the phone with TT
support telling you that you have to buy a new license. The
worst part is most folks will install the software and do
their taxes with no problems at all. Years from now, should
they wish to recalculate a return (audit - ammended return
-etc.) and they have replaced their computer or hard drive -
oh well -good luck in getting Intuit to even talk to you
about years old, no longer supported software.
-Ernie-
Bob Sandler
> - Switch to Microsoft - Tape Backup
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ago I compared Quicken and Microsoft and settled on Quicken,
> but not being able to backup is a show stopper.
You can use TaxCut instead of TurboTax to do your taxes, and
still use Quicken. TaxCut is produced by H&R Block, not
Microsoft. It will import data from Quicken as well as from
MS Money. I have seen some recent ads for a tie-in rebate
deal for TaxCut and MS Money, but the two products are from
different companies. Quicken does not (at least for now)
have the activation scheme that TurboTax has.
John T. Kirby
>> - Switch to Microsoft - Tape Backup
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Switching to Microsoft is my current preference. Two years
>> ago I compared Quicken and Microsoft and settled on Quicken,
>> but not being able to backup is a show stopper.
> You can use TaxCut instead of TurboTax to do your taxes, and
> still use Quicken. TaxCut is produced by H&R Block, not
> Microsoft. It will import data from Quicken as well as from
> MS Money. I have seen some recent ads for a tie-in rebate
> deal for TaxCut and MS Money, but the two products are from
> different companies. Quicken does not (at least for now)
> have the activation scheme that TurboTax has.
I used TaxAct last year and was satisfied with it. This
year I downloaded the 2002 version in November and had to
change computers in December. In moving the program to the
new computer I messed up and apparently lost some needed
stuff. I've contacted TaxAct support and they have been
available, prompt and cooperative in helping me get it to
work properly on the new machine. Their support has been
the best I've run into among software outfits.
JTK
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