Intuit Quicken Deluxe 2013 Full Retail
Avery Blaschko
Went through a similar experience and replaced Quicken with Moneydance Have been quite satisfied with it for several years now. I recommend you try it out. I think you will find it is a good replacement for the old form of Quicken. No subscription required.
Finally, it took a day of messing around to import since I had many years of transactions/accounts. But the only real issue is the qif format does not handle transfers well which was all I could get from Quicken at the time.
Several years ago when Quicken was starting its roll to the evil side, I looked at the then available alternatives for basic, functional programs. Everything was so limited, so narrowly focused, and/or not really user friendly. Like everyone else I was stuck with Quicken.
Your mistake was to install B&P and to alert quicken.com to your presence. If you had stayed on Quicken 2015 H&B you would probably been unaffected. I have been using Quicken 2013 since I upgraded from Quicken 2003, without a problem.
My cheapskate philosophy is to use back-level software until it will no longer work e.g. Quicken 2013 and Nero 9. My Lotus Wordpro failed to install on Windows 10, but LibreOffice will read .LWP files happily so I can avoid the MS Word random-indent feature.
I share your frustration. I managed to buy the 2016 version just before the forced subscription came into effect. I have been using Quicken since it was a DOS program and like you, upgraded every 3-4 years.
I recently had to set up a new laptop and installed from my usual archive. And yes, it refused to install when the call home failed. I searched on the Internet and was lucky to find a fairly convuluted procedure which successfully allowed me to install, so I am good for the life of my current equipment.
I also have been severely frustrated since Quicken separated from Intuit and the quality control level seems to have slipped. I also used to upgrade every 3 or 4 years and really thought that was quite fair, but am annoyed by the current subscription service which I need for the downloading capabilities which is my favorite feature.
Since then I have been quite happy with both the software itself and the community of users that populate the mailing list that serves as a support vehicle. There are a half dozen or so of the primary developers that are active on the mailing list resulting in rapid response to both bugs and new feature requests as well as general how to do it inquiries.
I have 47 accounts (bank, savings, investments) and probably another 30 hidden (closed) accounts (this is domestic). The user interface is a bit frustrating handling so many accounts when they have similar names (both active and hidden accounts are listed in the report definition dialogue box and long account names get visibly truncated so it can be hard to differentiate similar named accounts. Still, better the devil you know!
Quicken still offers a free version and download of Quicken Deluxe 2013. I have been using this for my budgeting this last year. I have been using the current subscription version for downloading my banking and investment transactions, but for the last few years, my investments have been limited to monthly interest, so I think I might just quit paying for the current version this May. Like @milleron , I typically get a physical disk annually from Ebay and key in the card code.
I found some excellent instructions for reinstalling Quicken 2016 on their forums, and I have kept all the updates needed to get to an up-to-date Quicken 2016 Deluxe. At one point, the update failed to install, and I had to create a new user in Windows that was only one word (!) and install the update from there. After that all I had to do was finish updating and import my data file and I was good to go. A royal pain, but it works. Not planning any changes going forward.
Be forewarned, when your annual subscription expires you get a large block stating that your subscription has expired. It takes up about 40% of the screen making it difficult to continue using. This does not ever expire. Thus, the ability continue to use Quicken after the subscription is expired is almost useless to me.
This version does not try to go online for updates and I never got into downloading bank data, and I prefer to do my own investment analysis rather than using their system, so the program never goes online for anything. Although posts elsewhere have been nervous about file size, I have had no problems with a file at 35MB and counting. It is a bit slow on reconciling big accounts (it only uses one thread of the CPU for the sort) but that is a minor issue.
Whenever I finish a Quicken session, I instantly do an online backup. Every few days I do an image backup of the entire data drive to an external HD with Macrium Reflect (the OS and programs are on C: and all the data is on D:).
As far as I can tell, except for Microsoft Money there has never been another software product that comes close to the functionality of Quicken. For whatever reason it seems this is not an area that other developers and entrepreneurs find interesting.
I too was a MS Money user until it was discontinued. I do download transactions so I started using Quicken. Money was excellent at dealing with investment transactions, including trading stock options. Quicken was not. I still have some problems with options transactions. I too hate the annual subscription, I had to switch to it about three years ago when the standalone version of Quicken I purchased would no longer do downloads. I have thought about trying the MS Money sunset edition but I am afraid that I would not be able to move my current Quicken data into it. I do not like Quicken.
Quicken 2016 Premier still works for my simple finances. I have it installed on a virtual machine with NO network connection, which prevents the Quicken logon dialog from popping up. I have kept copies of the update patches and just recently installed it on a new VM on a new Windows 11 host. I update stock quotes daily using a CSV file, which comes from Vanguard and requires just a small bit of Excel editing to make it compatible with Quicken.
A while back, there was an interesting comment on the Quicken user forum. It was something like: Quicken is just keeping the desktop version going until the old people like us who use it die off and everybody is on an online tool.
I used to do it like you, Will. I was a sole proprietor as well. I started out invoicing on Microsoft Works! Finally switched over to Quickbooks and that freed up an enormous amount of time for me. It was well worth it. But my last version was 2000 ?
Another potential contender is Tiller, which works with either Google Sheets (no thank you) or Excel. It is some kind of Super Spreadsheet Template that provides connectivity to download transactions. However, it is a subscription product so I am not likely to use it. At first glance, it looks hideously complicated.
Whatever program I choose must be able to export the data to CSV or some other universal format. I refuse to use a program that holds my data hostage in a proprietary format. I like the fact that neither Moneydance nor KMyMoney stores data in the cloud, and that both offer Linux versions. Microsoft pushes me closer to Linux as my primary OS with every new update.
I too was a committed user of Quicken for many years, but when it changed and was no longer with Intuit, I too tried GnuCash, and gave that up also. I now have my own system and am very happy with it. I use open office for all my work, gave up on M$oft and their outrageous costs as well as not wanting AI in everything I use. Of course Open Office is free where M$oft is a real pain and of course expensive. Spread sheets are easy to use, invoices are also not a problem.
I will put in another plug for KMyMoney. It is actively supported (you can open a bug fix ticket) and will soon be putting out additional enhancements. The reporting is extremely flexible. And it is free.
same here but I am using the 2014 Deluxe version. Had a few problems 3 or 4 years ago which I think, based on internet info, related to having too much data. I archived or deleted a few years of checking and savings data which seems to have avoided the problem for now.
Intuit (be it Quicken, Quickbooks any edition, etc.) is horrible to work with on technical support, is developed poorly in a number of ways, and has lots of ways of weaseling out of support if they need to.
We are SysAdmins.
We walk in the wiring closets no others will enter.
We stand on the bridge, and no malware may pass.
We engage in support, we do not retreat.
We live for the LAN.
We die for the LAN.
Hi Will. I quit using Quicken about 10 years ago. And this year Turbo Tax had so many of those annoying things that I switched to H&R Block. The process was less painful although I could give them a list of items that they should fix before next year. Thanks Will.
One thing I forgot to mention was that after install but before first launch I edited the quicken.ini file in Program Data with my old registration info and set
[WebConnect]
keepAlive=0
askIfSaving=0
On first launch, after having blocked in firewall, I went through settings and disabled privacy, update and online settings. Then rebooted and connected back to LAN.
I feel your Pain:
Been a Quicken user it seems forever. My function is investing, so the updates to stock prices are very important to me. When they went subscription I also rebelled then came back quickly. After finding no decent competitor in this field is surprising. I am not a fan of cloud based financial programs and do not use the cloud access of Quicken.
Years ago there was Microsoft Money as the main competitor, I would love to see them back in the business (i think).
Just my FYI, I annually purchase my quicken version from BestBuy, Office Depot or any other online retailer having a sale. I only need that code to update my existing version, no need to reinstall on PC.
Can you say MONOPOLY?