Microsoft Money in Linux

[N G]

Hi everyone,

I've been running money in Linux for over 5 years now and every now and then people ask me if it's still working.

Yes! I expect to keep it running indefinitely.

Wine 10 was released recently and I decided to see if I built up a new prefix if my method still worked. At first no, but ultimately yes.

In addition to Wine, you need a tool called winetricks which allows you to install msxml3, msxml4, and internet explorer 7; Money needs all of these. However, the latest winetricks release for 2025 and 2024 causes problems but winetricks 2022 and 2023 work fine.

I left a message at winetricks github page just to let them know but not expecting any changes since this is a very niche use-case. After all, these are getting to be pretty dated.

msmoneyquotes also works great, there's just one tweak that is required.

pocketsense python scripts modified for python3 also work fine, even if it's only to process in qfx files. Vanguard was my last direct connect but I assume those days are over.

If anyone wants to try this let me know and I can write up a more complete procedure, or at the very least I'm happy to answer questions.

[Ameridan (microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com)]

I've been reading that Vanguard direct connect does work again now.   If you decide to do a writeup, I'd be happy to publish it in my blog.  With the recent introduction of the new 2024 Mac mini,  your success makes me curious as to whether anyone has done a similar process to get Money running on a Mac.

[N G]

I just read the pocket sense posts! Yay for Vanguard!

As for running on a Mac, that was how I got started with a program called Wineskin Winery before jumping full time to Linux. Wineskin Winery doesn’t really exist anymore but it’s very similar to a paid program called Crossover by Code Weavers. I think it’s like $74 but they have a free trial, and there are some security aspects to the newer Mac operating systems that those guys have worked out. For a Mac, this is the most straightforward way I think.

I have a M1 macmini that eventually I’ll probably put linux on; I used to run Money on it too.

But in the meantime I would suggest to take Crossover for a spin, and I can help with the specifics with MSMoney. 

[-Kevin N]

Hi gia,

I would certainly be interested in a write-up on getting MS Money working within Wine.

On Linux Mint, I have Wine 10 installed, the 2025 version of Winetricks also WineGUI.

On Mint, I have the Python 3 build of Pocketsense working with my installation of Moneydance.  

I also have MS Money running on Windows in parallel with Moneydance.

So far, in Wine, I've been able to get Excel 2000 & Word 2000 working on one prefix.  I have Bose Soundtouch working on another prefix.

Getting MS Money working in Linux would help cement my efforts in having less of a dependency on Windows.  

My 6 machines don't meet the system requirements for Win 11 although, I've been able to install Win 11 onto 2 of them using Rufus.

I like Ameridan's idea of letting him publish your notes vis a vis MS Money on Linux.

TIA,

-Kevin N.

[N G]

OK this is good! I'd like to treat it as a kind of living guide. It's good because I'm very familiar with my procedure but it will be good to have some fresh eyes.

Disclaimer up front: tech is such a moving target so what works today might not work tomorrow. Also, as I learned during this last iteration of troubleshooting, we can't assume that the programs that winetricks pulls will be available indefinitely on the internet.

For Kevin:

If you want to get started while I draft up something more descriptive, you need a 32bit prefix, winetricks from 2022 or 2023, install mono (from wine) msxml3, msxml4, and ie7. Wine 10 is good but winetricks 2024/2025 doesn't install ie7 and/or msxml3 properly.

Hopefully later on in this process, if there's interest,  I'll explain how I have Money running in a docker/LXD container on my qnap nas, and access it with a RDP app on my ipad.

More to follow.

Nathan

[N G]

Here is a first pass at this. It could be shorter with screenshots but I'm trying to convey the information to a relatively new Linux user. Hopefully Kevin will have some good feedback as well.

I've attached it as a text file since it's far too much to post directly.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan.

Thank you for the attached .txt file.

I've d/l-ed it and will digest it throughout the day; there's a lot there. :)

I'll post back as soon as I can.

Thanks again,

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

HI Nathan,

I seem to have hit something of a roadblock.  Per the readme for winetricks, I must uninstall any previous versions of winetricks before installing a new version.  

I apparently have the 64-bit version of winetricks installed (per the banner that appears each time I run winetricks)

I'm having trouble uninstalling this version of winetricks. 

sudo apt-get purge winetricks

sudo apt-get autoremove

The above commands don't seem to remove winetricks.  

After I run them, it does look as though files are being removed but winetricks remains installed afterwards.

Let me look into this some more, it may take me a day or two.  I'm a Linux newbie so I tend to err on the side of caution.

I don't want to risk breaking the programs that I've been able to get working in Wine.  

I may start from scratch on a different installation of Linux but I'm not really hot on the idea of experimenting on that installation.

I'll post back if/when I get winetricks uninstalled.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Hi Kevin,

I was in your stage of experience with this not too long ago. Don’t worry, we’ll get you going!

A couple of things we can try. I don’t think there is a separate version of winetricks for 32 or 64 bit, I think it detects what’s in your prefix.

After you apt-get purge winetricks, try this command:

$ which winetricks

If winetricks is uninstalled you should get nothing back. If winetricks is still installed you should get something like:

$ which winetricks

/usr/bin/winetricks

Let’s verify this and then we can try to get winetricks installed from the winetricks github website.

Also, I understand the concern about messing up your existing prefixes. This gives me and idea to modify my scripts to be more clear. But you can always back up and restore your prefixes. We can work through these things.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

Thank you for your reply and help.

$ which winetricks returned /usr/bin/winetricks

I have come to the same conclusion that there are no separate winetricks versions for 32 and 64-bit.  

The banner that I was seeing stated that I was using a 64-bit WINEPREFIX not a 64-bit WINETRICKS, so that's on me.

I'm wondering if when I set up the default prefix if I set it as a 64-bit environment.  

Correct me if I'm wrong...  Creating a new prefix with a 32-bit architecture should circumvent that.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

No worries, I’ve been playing with Linux for over 20 years but not an expert at all. Everyday is a new learning experience; I scratch my head so often I’m nearly bald!

Definitely creating a new 32-bit prefix will do it. If you look at my winecfg.sh file, that is the command you need to make it.

I think I’m going to adjust my scripts (MSMoney.sh, winecfg.sh, winetricks.sh) to create and point to a prefix called .msmoneyprefix instead of .wine32. This will be clearer than the default prefixes .wine or .wine32.

With that said, if you use my scripts to create and work with the prefix you should have less trouble. I’ll adjust my text file and post it again.

I had another thought about winetricks: if you just run winetricks:

$ winetricks

it will use the one from your repository. 

But if you get the 2022 version from the github page and use my winetricks.sh script it won’t use the winetricks from your repo. I know the winetricks script says to not have both installed at the same time but we can work around that. That’s a warning for people who are new to winetricks.

Standby for an updated text file and we’ll try to walk through it again.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

Thanks again.  This sounds promising.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Here are a couple of files.

The zip file needs to be extracted on your Linux PC (Desktop, Downloads, doesn't matter as long as you know where it is).

There's an updated guide text file. It has a shorter list of instructions at the top and the first guide afterwards for reference. The files in msmoney.zip are the only files used to create the money prefix, install the dlls or MS Money, and run MS Money.  Only use my scripts and it "should" work. The scripts should automagically know your username and path. The 2022 winetricks is also included. It shouldn't conflict with a newer winetricks if you have that installed.

The new guide is also inside the zip file.

Good luck! 

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I've downloaded the two files and will give them a good looking-over.

It's getting a little late here in Georgia, USA and the one lesson I learned a long time ago was never to venture into a new computer project when it's getting late.

Earlier, I was reading through the comments in APPDB on Winehq for MS Money.  Just so we're on the same page...  I'm using MS Money Plus Deluxe Sunset and not some UK version from 2005. :)

I'll dive into this in the morning and report back.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help with this.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Understood and no worries. I've learned that lesson as well lol

My understanding of all this has improved from the last time I wrote about it in APPDB, and I'm hoping to make this work with any version of Money. I am in Japan and I have the Japanese version of Sunset Deluxe so I'll try to install that next and make sure it works, followed by the UK version.

And actually, as I mull all of this over in my mind, I might know enough to script the whole installation. I'm thinking that if we put the money installer in this new msmoney folder I can just script the whole thing.

I"m kinda excited about this!! More to follow!

Nathan

[N G]

I worked all day on it but the installer is ready.

There is a README file in the zip file with instructions. Place the zip file on your Desktop, extract it, and put the Money installer and moneyquotes files in the appropriate folders.

This webpage won't let me post the zip file with the mnyob99.dll included, so you'll have to add that. Hopefully when we put this all on Ameridan's website we can include the dll.

Good luck!

[N G]

Because this website blocked my first couple attempts at posting the installer and instructions, I posted the wrong README. This is the correct one since the mnyob99.dll is missing.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I have a copy of the requisite mnyob99.dll file.  I would imagine that anyone who is still using MS Money would also have a copy.  Like you say though, it would be good to include it if Ameridan's site allows.

Q. Do your scripts 'demand' that the msmoney.zip file be extracted to the Desktop?  Or...  Do the scripts allow them to be extracted to any location?

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I extracted msmoney.zip to the desktop and followed the instructions in the README.

I ran install.sh which showed a wine configuration update notice, then IE7 installed > Extracting Files, then Install Money Plus Deluxe > a notice that Money Plus Deluxe needs OS components > License > Accept > Install Finish > then unfortunately I got a fatal error. (see screenshot)

Per /home/kevin/msmoneyprefix/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/Microsoft Money Plus, it looks as though MS Money has installed as expected.

I've attached 2 backtrace files.  'backtrace.txt' is of the original error.  'backtrace_1.txt' is from when I clicked on Money Plus (in the Start menu).

[N G]

Hi Kevin,

I just reran Install.sh with the msmoney folder in my hope folder. Works for me, so I think it should work anywhere. Maybe lol

[N G]

I don't run Money from the Start Menu. I think if you look at the shortcut it points to:

env WINEPREFIX="/home/giardn/msmoneyprefix" wine C:\\ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start\ Menu\\Programs\\Microsoft\ Money\ Plus\\Money\ Plus.lnk

Maybe you can edit it to the actual msmoney.exe but I prefer to run it from my MSMoney.sh script. The reason being is it logs what's happening to wine-money-error.log on your Desktop.

Speaking of which, can you email me that file?

Also, I'll modify the Install.sh script to make it a bit more verbose. I can't interpret the backtrace files, I'm not deep into the programing of wine. But I will say that I got those exact same errors when I was using winetricks newer than 2023. Not sure how that is possible if you ran Install.sh

Maybe delete msmoneyprefix and try again? Either from your file manager or from the terminal:

$ rm -rf ~/msmoneyprefix

(be careful with rm -rf. You can wipe out a lot with this if you aren't careful. Probably don't run that as root/sudo)

I'll modify the install/winetricks scripts and post again.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I realized that I screwed up by clicking Money Plus in the Start menu right after clicking it. :(

After I screwed up, I did run msmoney.sh.  I'll attach the error log.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

WooHoo!  We have MS Money working on Linux!

Based on the text in the wine-money.error.log, I used winetricks.sh to install iertutil.dll.  

From my experience installing Bose Soundtouch, I also installed core fonts but I don't think that was a contributing factor to getting MS Money to fire up.

If you need me to test any further, let me know: I'm more than happy to help out.

I'm going to go put Money through its paces.  I'll remember to close it out at the Home page and use MSMoney.sh to launch it going forward.

Thank you so much for your work on the scripts.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Kevin!!!

Nice job man!

I'm glad it's working for you.

I'm going to work the Install.sh script a little more to create a log file just for the installation process. I may ask you to run that if you don't mind, I can change the name of the prefix to msmoneytestprefix so it doesn't interfere with the functioning one that you have. I'd like to see what your install log looks like.

Congrats!

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Thanks Nathan,  

I couldn't have done it without you is an understatement. :)

Any testing you want me to do, please don't hesitate to ask.  I'm in your debt.

It looked like iertutil.dll was the SP1 for IE7 so that may have played into it working.

I have Pocketsense set up to download my brokerage and banking transactions for Moneydance.  I'll just need to set it up to d/l stock quotes for MS Money.  Moneydance has its own quote loader so I never set that up in pocketsense.  Small potatoes.

Thanks again,

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I just wanted to touch base to let you know that MS Money on Linux is working perfectly.

I imported all of my end-of-the-month transactions using Pocketsense.  MS Money reconciled with Moneydance to the penny.

I added the loopback 127.0.0.1 g.msn.com to the hosts file.

I discovered the ~/.cache/winetricks folder which houses copies of all the downloaded components that can be saved for future installations.

So far, so good.

Thanks again for your help with getting MS Money on Linux.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Very cool, Kevin. Welcome to the club!

I'm working to revamp the Install.sh script, clean out some extra things from the ie7 part of winetricks. I got ie7 to install in winetricks-2024 by finding another error with how winetricks registers dlls for ie7. It seems like they were in the middle of implementing a new function but forgot to actually define it in winetricks! But even with that fix Money runs now but doesn't work properly like it does by using winetricks-2022. To be fair, probably not that many people have a need to install ie7; probably not well tested anymore.

Good observation about /home/user/.cache/winetricks for downloaded components. I meant to add that to my initial write-up but I was trying to convey so much information I lost track of that point. Note to self to include that so others are aware. Another item in addition to installing wine is a package called winbind ($ apt-get install winbind) is also required.

So coming up:

New wine-install.log will be created on the desktop and will record everything in the terminal as the Install.sh script runs. Useful for helping newbies.

Fixes to how winetricks ie7 installer works. Cleaner, less unnecessary commands.

Still thinking about how to make the script more rebust.

Edit wine-install-write-up.txt

On Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 9:06:07 AM UTC+9 kmnu...@hotmail.com wrote:

Hi Nathan,

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan.

I'm looking forward to testing your new installer.

I have 4 quick questions...

I'm not a MSMoneyQuotes user and I'd like to tidy up the Desktop.

Q1. Is it OK to comment out the 'touch' line in MSMoney.sh that reference wine-quotes.error.log?

Q2. Is it OK to comment out the 'WINEPREFIX=' line in MSMoney.sh that references MSMoneyQuotes and is it OK to then delete the wine-quotes.error.log file from the Desktop?

Q3. Is it OK to add msmoney/ to the paths of the 'touch' and 'WINEPREFIX=' lines that reference wine-money.error.log so that the wine-money.error.log file is generated inside the msmoney folder and then is it OK to delete the wine-money.error.log file from the Desktop?

Q4. Continuing in the spirit of keeping things tidy, and if an install.log is in the cards for all future implementations of install.sh, could install.log also be generated within the msmoney folder?

OK 1 more question... :)

Was it an oddity that I had to install the iertutil in order for MS Money to run for me?  Do you think a reference to iertutil should be added to the README for those that run into the same issue as I did?

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Hi Kevin,

This is why I wanted more eyes to look at this. I’ve only needed MSMoney.sh all these years so this is good feedback.

 

I'm not a MSMoneyQuotes user and I'd like to tidy up the Desktop.

Q1. Is it OK to comment out the 'touch' line in MSMoney.sh that reference wine-quotes.error.log?

Q2. Is it OK to comment out the 'WINEPREFIX=' line in MSMoney.sh that references MSMoneyQuotes and is it OK to then delete the wine-quotes.error.log file from the Desktop?

Yes to both, no issues. 

Q3. Is it OK to add msmoney/ to the paths of the 'touch' and 'WINEPREFIX=' lines that reference wine-money.error.log so that the wine-money.error.log file is generated inside the msmoney folder and then is it OK to delete the wine-money.error.log file from the Desktop?

This is good, I’ll make this change.

 

Q4. Continuing in the spirit of keeping things tidy, and if an install.log is in the cards for all future implementations of install.sh, could install.log also be generated within the msmoney folder?

I’ll do this as well.

 

OK 1 more question... :)

Was it an oddity that I had to install the iertutil in order for MS Money to run for me?  Do you think a reference to iertutil should be added to the README for those that run into the same issue as I did?

Are you running Wine 9 or 10? I’m on 9, I’ll retest with Wine 10 and see what happens. But I can add iertutil to the winetricks part preemptively and make sure nothing breaks.

Also, I realized I should install the ms core fonts as well, so that will be added too. I’ll try to post the msmoney-v2 today.

Thanks for the feedback.

Nathan

[N G]

One more question and a thought.

I was wondering if Install.sh should delete msmoneyprefix automatically so that Install.sh doesn’t “reinstall” into a folder with stuff already in it. I’m trying to reduce the chances of oddball behavior. Obviously anyone can modify these scripts as they please, I’m thinking about the people who aren’t familiar or comfortable with command-line stuff.

With that said, I never keep my mny data file “inside” the prefix. Maybe keep it in /home/user/Documents or something. The usual backup guidance applies.

My concern is I don’t want to zap  the mny data file with prefix.

Any thoughts?

I’m trying to do two things in general:

1. Make the install bullet proof against wine updates.

2. Be able to function correctly on different versions of Linux.

3. Make the script interactive (Do you have msmoneyquotes? do you want log files?)

If basic functionality is solid then I was planning to work on the niceties.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I had a suspicion that commenting out those items wouldn't be a bad thing but I just wanted to double-check.  Thank you for the confirmation.

About two weeks ago I installed Wine 9, to see if I could get Excel & Word working.  I tried getting Access to work too but couldn't; but I digress.  

It was only a matter of days when Wine 10 showed up in the Linux Update Manager.

So, I'm running Wine 10 now and I was running Wine 10 when I ran your install.sh file.

I too keep my .mny file in a ~/Documents/Money folder but I see your point of the disaster that could happen if it were kept within the prefix.

Maybe one of the interactive questions that you could pose to the user when running install.sh is:
'Are you updating a current MS Money installation or is this a new installation?'

Actually, let me mull this one over a little longer as the more I think about it the more I realize that it requires a proper fool-proof solution.
Overwriting someone's .mny file would be bad in every sense of the word.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Maybe I can do a search for .mny files and copy them into /msmoney/mnyfiles/ before deleteing the prefix. What do you think?

After years of running money my way I’m coming around to using the msmoney folder as my “base of operations.” 

There will be some new folders: logs, winetricks, mnybackups. Based on your feedback for streamlining, I’ll try to clean up msmoney folder to be cleaner. Logs will contain all the logs, winetricks will have the two winetricks files, and when I get mny file test figured out they will go in mnybackups. 

[-Kevin N]

I thought of a ?.mny or *.mny (I don't know the wildcard) Search of the prefix too but wasn't sure if that was getting beyond the scope of an installer.  Plus, I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement it or if it was even possible.  (newbie, remember?) :)

I was also thinking that it would require a level of user knowledge, beyond the basics, for them to actually place their .mny file inside the prefix.  After all, the Documents folder in the prefix is just a shortcut to the user's actual Documents folder in the file system.  We might be looking for a solution without a problem.  A simple warning to those upgrading, that any prior existing msnoneyprefix and its contents will be deleted might suffice.  

Then again, if implementing a Search and Move operation is doable without scratching out your last remaining hairs :), then that would be the safest bet.

I love the consolidation plans.  One question though, Install.sh generates the msmoney folder, doesn't the same risk of overwriting the msmoney folder exist?

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Thanks for the help Kevin, here's a new version of msmoney folder.

What's new from before:

- cleaned up the folder structure of msmoney (logs, extras, mnybackups, notes, winetricks).

- Cleaned up some items in winetricks-2022 script for ie7.

- the Install.sh runs a little more verbose so the user can see what's happening with ie7 installation.

- Install.sh installs microsoft core fonts into the prefix. Hopefully it will help Money look better.

- Install.sh installs iertutil

- Install.sh logs the whole installation. If anyone needs help with the installation piece this should help. It also logs the version of wine on your computer.

- If running Install.sh more than once, it will copy any mny files into msmoney/mnybackups/date-time. Please don't copy your mny data file into the prefix! Use the Documents folder in your home folder. But just in case of a mistake I wanted to be sure. So if you run Install.sh again, expect to see Sample.mny backed up.

- The initial install guides are in the notes folder for reference. Hopefully not needed but some might like to understand what the Install.sh does.

So, there should only be two folders added to a user's home folder: msmoney for installing, running, and logging MSMoney, and msmoneyprefix where Money is installed. msmoney is very small, and msmoneyprefix should take up about 1gigabyte of space.

If you do create a successful installation, it is possible to back up the prefix. Although with this script I'm not too worried now. I've ran Install.sh probably 100 times this week lol. It works great on the machines that I have but standing by for anyone needing help.

If anyone has any recommendations, questions, or comments I'm all ears. If we can get someone else to try this out maybe we can post msmoney.zip on ameridan's website?

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

The new installer worked perfectly.  Bravo! Sir!

2 things I should mention...  

1. MSMoney.sh, when it is first run, creates two zero-byte log files in the msmoney folder.  These are duplicates of the wine-money.error.log and wine-quotes.error.log files in the 'Logs' folder.  

2.  I'm wondering if MSMoney.sh should be created on the Desktop or maybe duplicated on the Desktop.  I'm thinking that requiring the user to route around to the /home/user/msmoney folder to access MSMoney.sh might lead to the user trying to start Money from the Start menu item.  I know someone who's done that. :)

I've attached my 3 log files for your perusal.

Again, super job.  Kudos.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Very cool!!!

Thanks for the feedback, I see the reason for the 2 zero-byte files. Oversight on my part, working the find command for backing up mny files left me with a few less hairs on top ;-) Still have a few left though! Also indicates that the touch commands for those in MSMoney.sh might not be necessary.

What I can do is have a shortcut be created on the desktop and it would point to the MSMoney.sh in the msmoney folder? I would like to avoid different versions of the same file existing in more than one place, especially in these early days. If a user were to edit the MSMoney.sh on the desktop and not the one in msmoney then unexpected behavior can result. If more people jump from Windows then debugging oddball stuff from a distance gets hard. 

I’ll post a new msmoney.zip soon with the changes, and maybe I’ll put the python3 version of pocketsense in as well. You said yours works well enough, is there anything that is weird from the python 2 version?

Thanks again Kevin!

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,  

Great point about not having duplicate files!  A shortcut to MSMoney.sh on the Desktop would be ideal.

The Python 3 version of Pocketsense does work as expected provided that the user accesses the Pocketsense files, specifically, Getdata.py from the Terminal.

The command 'python3 Getdata.py' (without the quotes) is CaSe SeNsItIvE (that one threw me at first)

It does not automatically import the downloaded .ofx files.  (It throws a permissions error.)  The import has to be done manually but the use of the combine ofx files option in Pocketsense's sites.dat file makes it very easy.

Also, it does not delete the prior set of downloaded .ofx files.  That needs to be done manually.

I've never had the need or knowledge of how to use the various scrubbers that PS users have developed so I can't speak to those.

Off hand, I can't think of any other issues with it.

I'll wait for your next implementation of install.sh.

Q. If the user already has a msmoney folder in their User folder, does extracting msmoney.zip in the User's folder overwrite the prior msmoney folder or does it create a msmoney(1) folder?  My only real concern is overwriting the moneyinstaller subfolder and losing the mnyob99.dll and the MS Money installer .exe.

This is such a great development.  I hope that other Linux users chime in on this but I fear that the length of the thread might dissuade them from looking in on it.  Perhaps once install.sh is to your liking, a new thread could be started to entice new users.

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I can't seem to get winetricks.sh in the extras folder to run.

winetricks-2022 in the winetricks folder works as expected.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

 I moved winetricks.sh to extras since I didn’t think it would be used once the prefix was setup. Are you using it to customize your prefix? Or experiment? I’ll move winetricks.sh to the winetricks folder (it probably makes more sense that way anyway).

Thanks!

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I've only been using Wine / Winetricks for around 2 weeks now so it is mostly experimenting.

I moved winetricks.sh to the winetricks folder and modified the path.  It works fine now.

Thank you.

[N G]

I did a test extract of msmoney.zip onto itself and it asks if you want to overwrite the existing files. This will work as long as the directory structure and file locations don’t change. I won’t change the folder structure anymore unless we come up with a good reason. This will also protect the files in moneyinstaller and msmoneyquotes as well; they shouldn’t be removed if you extract a new version of msmoney.zip.

[N G]

I found a problem in winetricks-2022 that prevents msmoneyquotes from working. Attached is a fix msmoney.zip, please rename to msmoney.zip before extracting.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

It's funny that you mention that.  I just tried it myself thinking that Linux has to be similar to Windows where it notifies you of files with the same name residing in the same folder.  So, I'd agree that that is fool-proof enough.

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

The latest msmoney.zip performed the installation perfectly.

The new Desktop shortcut works as expected - Thank you for that.

Those 2 zero-byte error.logs are still being generated.

winetricks.sh, now in the winetricks folder, works as expected.

I'm not a moneyquotes user so I can't troubleshoot that.

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I deleted msmoneyprefix for each installation, so I hope that's what you meant by installing from scratch.

For this most recent install, I also deleted the shortcut on the Desktop.

Once again, the installation was flawless.  Desktop shortcut and all!

I see the new installation of pocketsense.  Is this a version of Roberts original Pocketsense that you ported to Python3?

The version that I have been using I got from GitHub https://github.com/magnuspyke/ofxscripts/tree/main

That version behaves as I described in my earlier post.  

If the version you have can import directly into MS Money, that would be great!  I use Pocketsense with Moneydance as well so that would be double-great.

I'll set up Pocketsense in the morning and report back with my results. - it's getting a little late here. :)

I run 2 instances of Pocketsense.  1 for quotes and 1 for transactions.  I know that Pocketsense can do both at once but it has been my experience that 'sometimes' the quotes don't get imported as expected and then you have to wait for the next day to be able to import quotes again.  

It's a little more work but it's what consistently works for me so I'll set it up that way.

This is really starting to look like a finished product.

Until tomorrow then...

-Kevin N.

On Monday, February 3, 2025 at 7:54:02 PM UTC-5 gia...@gmail.com wrote:

Can you try remove and recreate msmoney from scratch and see what happens?

Also, here's a new zip file with all the fixes and a working (I hope!) pocketsense python3. It pushes the ofx files to Money on my machines.

Nathan

[N G]

Thanks for all the testing Kevin.

From scratch, I meant the msmoney folder that the install and MSMoney scripts live in. I just wanted to be sure you’re running the latest version. MSMoney.sh doesn’t create the phantom zero-byte files for me. If you can copy your money installer and dll into a newly extracted msmoney.zip I’m curious if you still get the zero-byte log files. And now, Install.sh should auto-delete msmoneyprefix for you as well.

As for the python3 scripts, I think I got them from the same place you did and then I just reworked them to fix problems. I should probably post a message to magnuspyke but I wanted to see if my changes were consistent for someone else. Plus I wasn’t sure if anyone was interested.

Just copy your sites.dat file and your ofx_config.cfg into the ofxpy_pocketsense-python3 and you should be good. I run it from the terminal after copying my qfx files into the import folder:

$ python3 Getdata.py

I’m excited to see how this works for you!

-Nathan

[N G]

I removed the last msmoney.zip that I posted, I realized some of my debug  logs were included. Here is the same msmoney.zip as last time without the logs.

Add your connect.key, ofx_config.cfg, and sites.dat to the ofxpy_pocketsense-python3-linux folder.

Nathan

[N G]

So the python3 scripts, while they generally work for me are in debug mode and will create Setup.log and Getdata.log files, even though debug is disabled. I think this is another bug in the 2to3 conversion. This isn’t fatal but I wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention if you run the python3 version.

@ Kevin, I don’t use pocket sense script for quotes so let me know if you see any weirdness. I’m less skilled at python than I am at bash, but I’ll still try to figure this out.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I'm going ahead with a full Pocketsense setup from scratch.  I figure that's what some users will have to do.  I'm in the middle of brokerage and banking setup right now.  I'll set up the quotes version next.  I'll post back in a few.

I don't see the zero-byte error.logs anymore.

-Kevin N

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,  

Hmm...

I didn't d/l the latest msmoney.zip because I was still in the middle of setting up Pocketsense.

I set up Pocketsense for trnxs and for quotes but I got some errors with both of them.  

This somehow resulted in my Money file now opening on the Z drive!?!?

So, I started over from scratch.  This time with the latest msmoney.zip file but it doesn't contain Pocketsense.

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I meant to add that starting from scratch with the latest msmoney.zip file, everything is back to normal re MS Money opening on the C drive.

There was no instance of Pocketsense in it though.

-Keivn N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

Welp, I've had something of a setback.

I tried having Pocketsense push the .ofx files to Money and when I did Pocketsense threw an error and Money crashed.

I spent a good part of the day watching Money crash over and over again.

When I could get Money to work and I tried manually importing individual .ofx files it would crash.  

Afterwards, it would crash moments after launching.

I've tried re-running install.sh several times.

I do have Money running again but it took copying the Money file from my Windows machine.

I'll try importing the .ofx files again later this evening after the markets settle and see what happens.

I have to confess, I'm a little gun-shy to try importing again. :(

I've attached the error that Pocketsense threw.  It completed the download and then added the little blurb to the bottom of the output.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

That actually looks correct, I'm wondering if the modified mnyob99.dll was copied into the prefix?

For the libvulkan.so.1 error, try to running:

$ sudo apt-get install libvulkan1:i386

Sorry about missing the pocketsense part. Here's a new zip file.

Nathan

[N G]

Can you tell me what version of python3 you're running?

$python3 --version

Thanks!

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

kevin@Latitude-E5540:~$ python3 --version
Python 3.10.12

Are you using a Mac or Intel-based machine? 

[N G]

I'm running Python 3.13.1 on an older intel laptop from 2015. Pocketsense also works on my nas running an AMD processor.

I'm working on looking through pocketsense for problems as we speak.

[-Kevin N]

I'm on a similar machine.  An older laptop that my neighbor gave me.  I don't know how old it is but it looks like a 4th Gen, i-5 so it's had a few birthdays.

I think I'm at the point of trashing the whole Wine installation and starting from scratch. 

Money crashes when I try to import a single .ofx that has maybe 5 trnxs.  It does manage to import .ofx files with no trnxs.  

The last line in the wine-money.error.log is always the same...

wine: Unhandled page fault on read access to 00000000 at address 32656F6B (thread 01f8), starting debugger...

[N G]

In the extras folder you can try a wineserver-kill or reboot before you go through the trouble.

My nas has python 3.11.2

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,  

I did try both of those options.  It was a long day; I tried most anything.  I even ran the File Repair in MS Money which I don't think I've ever had to do before.  But alas, something is seriously broken and I don't think it's worth trying to troubleshoot any further.  It needs a redo.

I'm glad that I'm retired and have nothing but time on my hands.  :)

Do you have any pointers for uninstalling Wine?  Should I just use the Software Manager and / or Synaptic?

-Kevin N.

[N G]

I'm retired too! :-)

I usually do

$ apt-get purge wine*

$ apt-get purge wine:i386 (this is for the 32bit part)

For the install,  if you look at my guide it shows how I install from the winehq website.

So run the purge commands, reinstall wine and wine:i386

extract the latest msmoney.zip like you've been doing.

Fingers crossed.

I'm still going through pocketsense to verify python3 issues.

Nathan

[N G]

Kevin,

I had another thought back when I used to have these problems. When you go into wintricks, select default prefix, Uninstall. Do you see two Mono files in there? There should be two mono files. If not, we either need to get them installed, or install dotnet20 from winetricks. The mono packages are preferred.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

Yep, 2 monos.  Wine mono runtime & Wine mono Windows Support.

Thanks for the uninstall commands.  It looks like that's my next step.

Worst case scenario is that I'll be using Moneydance with Linux and MS Money in Windows.  Which is not all that bad.  Moneydance is quite good actually.  

None of my machines meet the system requirements for Win 11 but I was able to install it on my Gen 3, i-7 desktop TPM 1.2 using Rufus.  So, I'll be able to use MS Money there for the foreseeable future.

Welp, here goes nothing. ;)  I hope I can get this sorted.  I'd really like to keep using MS Money with Linux.

Thanks for all your help along the way.  

I'll let you know how it turns out.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

I'm pulling for ya. I'm willing to keep trying for as long as you are.

Maybe for testing in Linux you can use the sample.mny file so you don't damage yours until we get this figured out.

[N G]

Kevin,

I meant to tell you earlier that the Z: drive is actually a normal thing. The Z: drive is how wine/Money can access files outside of the prefix. In other words, in wine C:\ = /home/$USER/prefix/drive_c and Z:\ = / on your Linux file system. Hope this makes sense.

Nathan

[N G]

I think I found (part) of the problem. In MSMoney.sh, comment out the last line that starts with python, or use this zip file. I'm posting a new msmoney.zip file with that part removed and the latest python3 pocketsense scripts.

I was trying to prevent the creation of setup.log and getdata.log in the ofxpy_pocketsense folder but I would have to rework a lot of Setup.py and Getdata.py. Maybe I'll still get there but for now I believe everything works in Setup.py, Getdata.py. The big part was if logging and debug is disabled, nothing gets written to those two log files. Also, there was a few commands that are deprecated (this means they work right now but will fail in the future) that have been fixed.

For Kevin and anyone else who might try this:

New zip file. The README file has been updated as well.

Nathan

[N G]

Kevin,

A couple more questions:

Are you using pocketsense to download directly from a bank or financial institution?

Are you downloading from your bank's website and then copying the qfx/ofx files into Import?

I do do both of these in my normal flow and they work here. Just trying to compare notes and see what's different.

Are you moving  ofx files from your windows computer and moving them to

pocketsense/Import on your linux computer?

I'm wondering if there's something going on with differences between how linux does linefeed/carriage returns. If you copy an ofx file that windows processed to linux it could cause an issue. Just trying to rule out something external to the ofxpy_pocketsense folder in msmoney.

Can you see if xdg-utils is installed on your machine?

dpkg -l | grep xdg-utils

You might wanna copy and paste that one. This is dpkg "dash little L" , | is shift backslash, and then grep xdg-utils.  

I just did a complete start to finish rebuild with Install.sh, worked without errors. And my pocketsense inside msmoney worked as well.

I'll let you test the last msmoney that I uploaded, and then tomorrow I may have a new one.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

Thank you for sticking with me.  Thank you too for the Z:\ explanation.  

I figured it must be something like that but it was weird going from seeing C:\ blah, blah, blah to Z:\ blah, blah, blah on the MS Money Sign-in Screen.

OK, I'm going to try to provide as much detail as I can recall...

I removed and replaced Wine 10 last night.  The results were the same.  

One at a time, I was able to import 10 out of the 11 .ofx files obtained from running the Python3 version of Pocketsense.

None of the files are manually downloaded from the financial institution's websites.

It was the last of the 11 files that caused the crash.

The version of Pocketsense that I used to obtain the .ofx files was the one I had been using all along with Moneydance.  

Yesterday, at some point, I did use the version of Pocketsense included in your msmoney.zip file but the results were the same.

Going forward, I will only use the one that you are including with msmoney.zip so we're on the same build.

All .ofx files are obtained by Pocketsense in the Linux environment.  

The only file transferred to Linux from Windows is the .mny file.

The one .ofx file that would crash MS Money held 4 trnxs from my bank.

Last night, I was able to successfully import .ofx files from my brokerage that coincidently also contained 4 trnxs.

I would say that it may have been a mal-formed .ofx file that caused the crash but the same .ofx file imported cleanly into Moneydance on Linux.  

On the Windows machine, the .ofx files obtained by Pocketsense on that machine, also imported cleanly into both Moneydance and MS Money.

This morning... 

I ran the command you posted but I don't know what to do with the utility.

~$ dpkg -l | grep xdg-utils
ii  xdg-utils                                  1.1.3-4.1ubuntu3~22.04.1                   all          desktop integration utilities from freedesktop.org

I transferred my .mny file from Windows to Linux (which now includes the 4 trnxs imported from my bank that caused the crash)

I tried re-importing the one .ofx file, from last night, that caused the crash into MS Money on Linux and it did not crash!!  Yay, maybe. :]

I downloaded a new fresh copy of mnyob99.dll from Ameridan's website.  

I'll go ahead now and d/l your latest msmoney.zip file.

I think that's about everything.  I'll end this here and report back.

Thanks again for hanging in there.

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

Well things certainly look different today than they did yesterday and by different, I mean better.

I installed the latest msmoney.zip file.  Install.sh went off without a hitch and ran Pocketsense.

Pocketsense informed me that the data was received and will be imported into MS Money...  Do I want to open Money?

I agreed and the .ofx files were imported as expected with no crashing!!

Out of the 11 accounts, it did import only 1 trxn from wifey's Visa account but at least it didn't crash!!

I hold out final judgement until the 'troublesome' bank account is imported again.  Fingers crossed.

But all in all, much better results today - for sure.

Thank you again Nathan.  I hope you're not getting tired of hearing that. :)

A few notes that I made along the way that I'd like to share...

When the user runs install.sh, they should 'absolutely' run it in the Terminal.  

There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes and when install.sh is run from the Terminal, the user can see that the program has not stopped running. 

When install.sh is run without the Terminal it may appear like nothing is happening during those intervals where there's no GUI interaction.

When the user is prompted to the fact that 'Money requires several operating system components...' do not click 'Cancel'.

In the README...

13. For pocketsense users:

The user should run Setup.py first.  Doing so creates sites.dat, sites.bak & sites.template

Theres a small typo... sits.dat should read as sites.dat.

Let the user know that the connect.key file may or may not exist in the pocketsense folder.

It is my understanding that the connect.key file is created only when the user has ofxVer: 103 as a <site> setting in sites.dat.

Thats about does it.

Fingers still crossed.

-Kevin N.

[Cal Learner]

Kevin... I have been reading along. Your mention of connect.key and sites.dat creation makes me suggest to not overwrite sites.dat, ofx_config.cfg, or connect.key if porting an existing installation. connect.key is one that you can't readily reconstruct from scratch. I suspect that is already taken care of in your scripting, but I figure it can't hurt to check.

https://groups.google.com/g/microsoft-money/c/Oiq0hIqiBKU/m/spntNF2VAAAJ

[-Kevin N]

Hi Cal,

I believe your post is intended for Nathan.  Correct?

Nathan is maintaining the scripts.  I'm the one having all the troubles. :)

Nathan's scripts create a new instance of Pocketsense so copying sites.dat, ofx_config.cfg & connect.key from a working setup should not result in overwriting anything of value.

Although, TBH, I don't know enough about connect.key as none of my financial institutions use ofxVer 103.

-Kevin N.

[Cal Learner]

Thanks. I only now notice that only Citicard, of my sites.dat entries that I use, specifies   ofxVer 103. 

You are the one who mentioned connect.key so that is what drew my attention. So Nathan is doing the scripts, and you are also on the lookout for what might cause you or others problems.  I view Connect.key as a form of 2FA added to version 103.

[N G]

Thanks for the clarification Kevin, I just wanted to be sure and not make any assumptions. Good info.

The reason for the xdg-utils command is to verify that you have it. Pocketsense for linux uses that because the version from the website was geared towards Windows. I have a version for MacOS as well, but I plan to make a version that is platform independent. 

Nathan

[N G]

Good points on running Install.sh. I always run both Install.sh and MSMoney.sh in the terminal so I can monitor things. Also, I don’t trust computers :-D

 My flow is to run MSMoney.sh first and wait for it to load. Then I run pocketsense. If I run pocketsense first and let it open Money that way, I don’t have the terminal window available to manually close Money in case it hangs. This looks like:

Close Money, and either it gets stuck at a blue virtual desktop screen (this depends on settings in the graphics tab in winecfg) or Money disappears but I don’t get control back in the terminal. Either way, press Ctrl-c in the terminal and it’s good. If I can’t ctrl-c then extra wine processes will still be running in the background and they need to be killed manually, or a reboot will fix it. Hope this makes sense.

 

I’ve experienced what happens if I click cancel during Money’s part of the install. Definitely crash and burn! This is why I wanted Install.sh to delete msmoneyprefix if it exists, to compensate for a previous bad run.

I’ll update README as you suggest. 

A thought about the possible malformed ofx file: I didn’t do anything with scrubber.py so it’s possible there is some tweaking I can do. There could be something that makes it weird in linux once in a while. I’ll take a look at that today. I have already fixed similar problems in Setup.py, Getdata.py, and rlib1.py. Once it’s all solid in linux then I’ll shoot for platform-independent.

Hopefully you’re on your way now. It would be great if you could try this on a different computer/type of linux and see how it goes. I’m hoping someone else is willing to try this out as well before I ask Ameridan to host the zip file. So many different kinds of linux out there. Certainly for someone coming new from Windows Linux Mint is a great choice. I used to run LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition).

Nathan

On Thursday, February 6, 2025 at 4:32:38 AM UTC+9 kmnu...@hotmail.com wrote:

Hi Nathan,

[N G]

Thanks for background info Cal.

I was worried that Kevin and I were spamming the group with the results of this journey. I think it’s important for anyone following along that this road can be bumpy in the beginning but it can be worth the trouble. And for anyone in the future, the trials and tribulations of our process can be helpful to reference.

Thanks for everyone’s patience!

Nathan

[N G]

Hi Cal, 

I have the connect.key but I never looked in to whether I still needed. I only connect to Vanguard now, everything else is imported.

If only Citi uses ofx 103 then I can put a blurb in README about it.

Nathan

[Cal Learner]

Nathan: My connect.key has entries for various sites, but my sites.dat only causes ofx103 for CitiCard of the ones I use. In my sites.dat I see an entry  SiteName : USAA Banking NEW  which also specifies 103. I never used that FI, but that was once posted as a working thing by somebody. There are probably others. So I am saying that you probably don't want  to try to list all, but you could list that as an example.

Here are my sites.dat site entries, although I know that some of those are defunct:

#SITE ENTRIES
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------            
<site>
    SiteName   : AmEx
    AcctType   : CCSTMT     #credit card
    fiorg      : AMEX
    fid        : 3101
    url        :  https://online.americanexpress.com/myca/ofxdl/desktop/desktopDownload.do?request_type=nl_ofxdownload
    bankid     :
    brokerid   :
    appid      :
    appver     :
    mininterval:
    timeOffset :
</site>
<site>
    SiteName   : CitiCard
    AcctType   : CCSTMT     #credit card
    fiorg      : Citigroup
    fid        : 24909
    url        : https://mobilesoa.citi.com/CitiOFXInterface
    bankid     :
    brokerid   :
    ofxVer     : 103 #use 10-minute enable if new ConnectKey  https://citi.com/datamanagement
    appid      :
    appver     :
    mininterval:
    timeOffset :
</site>

<site>
    SiteName : CITIBANK_IMPORT
    AcctType : BASTMT
    fid : 2102
    fiorg : Citibank
    url :
    bankid : 271070801
    brokerid :
    appid :
    appver :
    mininterval :
    timeOffset :
    ofxVer :
</site>
<site>
    SiteName : FIDELITY
    AcctType : INVSTMT
    fiorg : fidelity.com
    url  :  https://ofx.fidelity.com:443/ftgw/OFX/clients/download
    fid  : 7776
    bankid :
    brokerid : fidelity.com
    appid :
    appver :
    mininterval : 20
    timeOffset: # do not use withy my qq scrubber. Maybe -34 with released.
</site>
<site>
    SiteName : WELLS FARGO ADVISORS
    AcctType : INVSTMT
    fiorg : WF
    url  :  https://ofxdc.wellsfargo.com/ofxbrokerage/process.ofx
    fid  : 12748
    bankid :
    brokerid : Wells Fargo Advisors
    appid :
    appver :
    mininterval :
    timeOffset : 5 # For all
</site>
<site>
    SiteName   : DISCOVER_CC
    AcctType   : CCSTMT     #credit card
    fiorg      : Discover Financial Services
    fid        : 7101
    url        : https://ofx.discovercard.com:443
    bankid     :
    brokerid   :
    ofxVer     : 103
    appid      :
    appver     :
    mininterval:
    timeOffset :
</site>
<site>
    SiteName   : Janus_Inv
    AcctType   : INVSTMT
    fiorg      : Janus
    fid        : 6115
    url        : https://ofx3.financialtrans.com/tf/OFXServer?tx=OFXController&cz=702110804131918&cl=50900132018
    bankid     :
    brokerid   : dstsystems.com
    appid      : Money
    appver     :
    mininterval:
    timeOffset : # my Janus uses scrubber, but would uses 0 even without.
</site>
<site>
    SiteName   : VANGUARD
    AcctType   : INVSTMT    #investment
    fiorg      : Vanguard
    fid        : 1358
    url        : https://vesnc.vanguard.com/us/OfxDirectConnectServlet
    bankid     :
    brokerid   : vanguard.com
    appid      :
    appver     :
    mininterval: 30     #Vanguard doesn't like short intervals? Use 30 day window.
    timeOffset :
</site>
<site>
    SiteName   : USAA
    AcctType   : BASTMT     #bank
    fiorg      : USAA
    fid        : 24591
    url        : https://service2.usaa.com/ofx/OFXServlet
    bankid     : 314074269
    brokerid   :
    appid      : QWIN
    appver     :   #blank means take default from control2.py
    mininterval:
    timeOffset :
</site>
<site>
     SiteName : CAPITALONE360
     AcctType : BASTMT
     fiorg    : ING DIRECT
     fid      : 31176110
     url      : https://ofx.capitalone360.com/OFX/ofx.html
     bankid   : 031176110
     brokerid :
     appid    :
     appver   :
     mininterval: 180
     timeOffset :
</site>
<site>
     SiteName : DiscoverBank
     AcctType : BASTMT
     fiorg    : DiscoverBank
     fid      : 12610
     url      : https://ofx.discovercard.com:443
     bankid   : 031100649
     brokerid :
     appid    :
     appver   :
     mininterval: 180
     timeOffset :
</site>
<site>
     SiteName : T. Rowe Price
     AcctType : INVSTMT #investment
     fiorg : T. Rowe Price
     fid :
     url : https://www3.troweprice.com/ffs/ffsweb/OFXServlet
     bankid :
     brokerid : troweprice.com
     appid :
     appver :
     mininterval: 15
     timeOffset :
</site>
<site>
    SiteName : USAA Banking NEW
    AcctType : BASTMT #bank
    fiorg : USAA
    fid : 24591
    url : https://df3cx-services.1fsapi.com/casm/usaa/access.ofx
    bankid : 314074269
    brokerid :
    ofxVer : 103
    appid : QWIN
    appver :   #blank means take default from control2.py
    mininterval:
</site>

<site>
    siteName : E*TRADE Brokerage
    acctType : INVSTMT #investment
    fiorg : E*TRADE Financial #Try leaving this out if any problems
    fid :
    url : https://ofx.etrade.com/cgi-ofx/etradeofx
    bankid :
    brokerid : etrade.com
    ofxVer : 102
    appid :   #blank means take default from control2.py
    appver : 2700
    mininterval :
    timeOffset :
    delay :
    skipZeroTrans:
    userAgent :PocketSense
    dtAcctUp : 19900101
    clientUID :
</site>
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[N G]

Kevin,

If you still have a copy of the troublesome ofx file and are willing to share a sanitized copy I'd like to try it out. Totally up to you,

Nathan

[N G]

As far as I can tell nothing jumps out in scrubber.py.

I had an issue with PenFed a couple of years ago where they changed their back-end to having SalesForce run it for them. Suddenly credit card transactions in the qfx files had an investment account header, and transactions were all the wrong sign (negatives were positive and vice versa). I had a script to fix their qfx files, it took a while to convince them to fix it lol.

It's always possible that ofx/qfx files get goofed up from time to time, but it is interesting that Moneydance was able to tolerate whatever was happening better than Money; Moneydance is actively maintained though.

Did I mention that I don't trust computers? :-)

Anyway, maybe now is a good time to go into a holding pattern on msmoney.zip and see how things go for a while.

Nathan

[N G]

Here's the latest msmoney.zip based on Kevin's feedback.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

No, I'm sorry, I ran Pocketsense already for today so the 'bad' .ofx file is gone.  It was for wifey's Visa card.  Today, wifey's Visa card was imported as expected.  Yesterday's file had 4 trnxs, todays only had 1.

Now that things are a little more settled down, tomorrow I should be able to test Pocketsense for updating stock quotes.  Because of the way MS Money does things, I have to import the stock quotes .ofx file before importing the trnxs .ofx file or the stock prices don't get updated and I have to wait until the next day. yada, yada, yada.

I generally have MS Money open before running Pocketsense as well.  I actually modified Getdata.py so that [I]nteractive is the default behavior and that [N]o is the default for the 'Upload results to Money?' prompt.  This way if I accidentally run Pocketsense before the market settles or if just want to test it out, it doesn't push the data to MS Money.

-Kevin N.

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I agree with you about putting things on hold for a while.  You've accomplished a lot in a short while.  It's time for more testers.

Perhaps you should start a new thread with the latest version of the scripts attached to give it some better exposure.

-Kevin N.

[Ameridan (microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com)]

I suggest that you upload the file(s) to a folder, like Cal did for his F2O scripts.  That way the link remains the same, but is managed by you and always the latest version.   If I publish an article by you, it would then point to the same folder.

[N G]

Sounds like a plan. Maybe instead of the guide on how to set it up and how it works, we can do it more like a faq for things to keep in mind when running Money in linux. A lessons learned kind of document maybe. 

I had an interesting problem today. On my laptop running Install.sh with iertutil is fine, but on my nas iertutil crashes out and kills winetricks.. My nas is running wine 9.0, everything else is the same. It will be good to know what is causing it. This has caused me to learn how to enable more detailed debug messages written to the log files. 

OK. I’ll work on cleaning up the README and make an faq while we test more.

Nathan

[N G]

Will do. Thanks Ameridan. 

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,  

Pocketsense stock quotes imported cleanly into MS Money.  I run a separate instance of PS, just for stock quotes.

Wifey's Visa account imported another 1 trxn successfully - no crashing!

MS Money and Moneydance reconcile to the penny.

-Kevin N.

[N G]

Right on!

I’m getting ready to start a new thread soon. I was poking around on the bogleheads forum and there some posts about MS Money and alternatives. Maybe once we get things all set up we can drive some interest to Dan’s website.

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

Robert's original python 2 Pocketsense script would delete the prior days .ofx files before downloading new ones.

The pyrhon 3 version of PS that I d/l-ed from Github would not do that.  I had to manually delete them prior to running PS.

I noticed that the python 3 version of PS that you include in msmoney.zip restores that functionality.

Is that functionality something that you restored to PS?

If so, thank you. :)

-Kevin N.

[Cal Learner]

My strong preference would be that the existing OFX files not be deleted from XFR, but ideally would be moved to another folder. Having those could be very useful for creating or updating the F2O_DB.csv after  the morning after.  If they just accumulated XFR, that would work too.

In the Windows  batch file that I use to invoke PocketSense, I include this command:

copy %PS_DIR%\xfr\*.ofx  %USERPROFILE%\Documents\F2O\oldofx\  /Y

PS_DIR is an environment variable that represents my PocketSense folder in my batch file.

F2O_DBgather.py and make_new_F2O_DBgather.bat.bat should be able to use such a folder to create the database with the latest info, even if the user never even tried F2O previously. It would be a shame if the Fidelity server turns off, and PocketSense deletes all of the successful Fidelity OFX files that map symbols, names, and CUSIPs for stuff you hold.

[N G]

🤣

I didn’t even know that was broken. When I first started looking at the scripts my focus was on proper python2 to python3 conversion, and also valid linux commands. So maybe?

[N G]

Interesting, I don’t have a use-case where I need to retain the files in xfr. Maybe I can do something where instead of deleting them, they can moved to msmoney/logs/xfrbackup ?

Maybe we can implement it as a setting in the sites.dat file instead of users changing the code directly?

What do you think?

Nathan

[N G]

I started looking into what Cal was referring to. The change to make is in Getdata.py:

```

#delete old data files
        ofxfiles = xfrdir+'*.ofx'
        if glob.glob(ofxfiles) != []:
            os.system("rm "+ofxfiles)

```

Which reminds me that I had made that change for Linux awhile ago (2020?) for python2.7. Which then reminded me that I did not get the python3 scripts from that github page lol. I converted the original pocketsense scripts to work with a Mac, then Linux (basically the same), and then python3.

This is from the original python2.7 Getdata.py for WIndows:

```

#delete old data files
        ofxfiles = xfrdir+'*.ofx'
        if glob.glob(ofxfiles) != []:
            os.system("del "+ofxfiles)

```

del doesn't work in Linux, rm does.

In any case, for Cal, this is what we would need to modify. Maybe we can put something like "DeleteOFX = Y/N" in sites.dat. An even simpler way is to not do anything crazy, and just comment out that little paragraph and nothing will be deleted. Maybe that's better?

Thoughts?

Nathan

[N G]

Edit to my last post. Pretty sure I did get python3 scripts from magnuspyke, and then I edited his to make them work. The paragraph that checks for python3 vs python2 is not mine. Not to take away any credit from magnuspyke, apologies in advance.

Nathan

[N G]

I have a friend who runs Arch Linux / Manjaro run the install script with wine-stable 10.0 installed. Worked like a champ. He remembers spending a day fighting with wine and was amazed at how easy this is. He did a test install without iertutil and Money crashed like what you experienced Kevin. I’m running wine-stable 10.0 now too and it happened to me as well. If anyone running a previous version of wine has trouble then I’ll address it, but the wine devs would probably say we should be running the latest wine-stable unless there’s a reason not too. 

I was concerned with Arch because there are some differences in multiarchitecture (amd64 i386 coexistance is different than debian/ubuntu) and package management stuff. His machine is a beast, he said Install.sh ran and completed in a minute! 😳 My 2015 Asus takes about 5 minutes! lol

So anyway, that further helps our cause!

Nathan

[N G]

One more positive:

I was trying to edit surf.mar with a hex editor and while I was able to do it safely, had the be problem as described on Dan’s website with windows in Money being cutoff. 

If I run winecfg from the extras folder, click on graphics tab at the top and bump the dpi to 144 I can reduce the squinties without cutting off the text for my laptop. I have it set to 120 during install, but people should adjust to their preference. 

Nathan

[-Kevin N]

Hi Nathan,

I didn't want to post this on the new site and start it off on the wrong foot.

The MS Money exe is too big when combined with mnyob99.dll for Googel Drive to scan it for viruses