MONEY DELUXE 2005 EN MINI BOX CD
1 Please do not buy - it is painful!
I have been a user of Money for years, and I love(d) it. However, my upgrade from 2004 to 2005 has been so problematic and frustrating. I cannot recommend that anyone purchase this product.
Money 2005 decided it would be fun to duplicate all of my transactions, and split every split transaction into several separate and unlabeled, uncategorized transactions. This caused my balances to be off in several accounts by as much as $80,000! And for some inconceivable reason, Money then decided to TRIPLE many of my transactions, leaving me with a lovely (but completely incorrect) account balance of $122,000. This problem occurs not only in my accounts that I download to, but also in my hand-entered accounts, like cash.
In addition, all of my categories have been tripled.
I have spent days waiting for email responses (both of which were completely unhelpful and did not address my problems), and I've spent over an hour on a long-distance phone call (Why in the world does Microsoft not provide a 1-800 number for tech support? Is it because they know they will get 100's of calls a day?), getting incredibly lame responses like "oh, just delete those hundreds of accidental duplicate transactions."
I find this product to be incomplete, frustrating, time-consuming and useless. I will be going back to Money 2004.
2 Lots of Potential Overshadowed by Problems
MS Money Deluxe 2005 has a lot of potential but has bugs that make it a waste of time.
First: accounts are updated by institution. If you close an account at that institution, you cant close it in Money unless you close that institution entirely in Money. Also, for some reason, accounts get duplicated in Money. If you want to delete the duplicate, you have to delete all accounts for institution. the only solution I found was to manually "adjust" the duplicate account to 0.
Second: Want to make an alternate budget plan for when your life changes? (like after school, after marriage, new job, lost job, ect...?) The new Money file you will open to do this will incorporate only SOME of your accounts, and will erase your old budget entirely, making you work from scratch.
Third: Want to use your money file on multiple computers? Say, when out of town, work with it on your laptop, then update those changes on your desktop? NO way--you can view the changes on the other computer if you let MS have all your financial info stored on the web, but you cant work the same file on both machines. You can save your data to the web from one machine and then use that data in a new file on the other machine, but some accounts do not get incorporated onto your new file, and changes to your budget do not get incorporated onto your new file.
Fourth: Why in the world can't you take your money file, work with it on one computer, back it up to a floppy, and work with it on another computer??? Imagine having a word processor that would only let you view and edit your documents on the original machine where it was created? THAT WOULD BE ABSURD, AND THAT IS WHAT MS MONEY DOES?!! MS purposefully went to great lengths to make this software IMPOSSIBLE TO USE IN ANY MEANINGFUL PRODUCTIVE WAY.
I hate MS money now. It is not expensive, but when you spend hours and hours trying to fix problems until you realize that there is nothing you can do, it is very frustrating. An excel spreadsheet is easier, If you have good handwriting a pencil and paper is better. THIS SOFTWARE IS JUNK.
3 Good fun balancing accounts
Great job, Microsoft, on another quality product!
Trivia question: what do you get when you cross the usability of Lotus Notes with the stability of Mac OS 9 and the security of Internet Explorer? That's right - Microsoft Money 2005!
Seriously though, it won't properly download 90 days of transactions from my checking account into a BRAND NEW FILE without garbling stuff. Back to the cesspool from whence it came...
4 An HONEST review after 2 months of use
You want an honest review? Save your money.
I switched to Money 2004 Deluxe and was so happy to get away from Intuit (Quicken). I laughed for a full year as I enjoyed Money 2004 Deluxe immensely.
Then I "Upgraded" to 2005 Deluxe in January. What a mistake.
As other reviewers have mentioned, it is full of bugs and removes features that were in the previous version.
I repeatedly requested a way to set up multiple home page views, as I did in Money 2004. The car page, the home page, etc. I was stonewalled and finally they simply refused to answer me straight out when I wanted a simple answer "is the feature no longer present?"
Then I sent an email to support regarding 3 bugs I've been putting up with for 2 months.
1) Automatic Sign-in to Hotmail no longer works after running Money 2005. Until you reboot the computer.
2) Accouts do not automatically update anymore, you must manually force the update.
3) The "Hide this window" for the updating message box doesn't work. The software never remembers you want the window to stay hidden, so you must constantly close it every time you update.
The answer from support? (paraphrased) "We can reproduce all 3 of these issues and they've been reported to the developers. Unfortunately we cannot guarantee these features will be added to Money 2005. Send them a suggestion."
These aren't features, they are BUGS. They should have been fixed IMMEDIATELY. After 2 months they still aren't doing anything about them?
Latest issue: I closed a CD account with my bank. Every time I manually update, I get errors because the account no longer exists at the bank. Is there a way to stop this CLOSED account from updating? Of course not. Tech support told me to reopen the CD account and disable online services. This disables ALL online services for my bank as you can only do it by institution, not by account. I followed his instructions, realizing I would have to re-enable my other bank accounts for online updates. When I did this, Money 2005 was so kind as to connect to my bank and make ALL NEW ACCOUNTS, leaving me with duplicate accounts for every bank account I had been using.
First, closed accounts should not be "updated". Duh. Second, the software should allow EACH account to be disabled from online updates, not just on an institutional basis.
Do the developers actually use their own software? I think not.
Whomever is responsible for this pile of garbage should be fired by Microsoft. Maybe they can get a job at Intuit, that's where they belong. Bring back the development crew for Money 2004. Please.
5 Worst upgrade ever
Delivered with dozens of problems and after 2 patches still has some significant problems and numerous annoyances. The major problem I have is that sales and/or purchases of securities end up being recorded backwards in computing the balance. This can occur up to several days after first entered and requires going back and deleting and reentering the transaction until it finally stays posted correctly. My major annoyances is that automatic updates do not work for credit cards and banks, and require manual 'update now' to be performed to get these updated. Also this edition signs you out of your passport account every time and if you normally use 'keep me signed in' so you don't have to sign in every time you use, say My MSN, you have to sign in every time you use Money. I suggest you stay with your old versions, as by the time I gave up with the excuses and eventual patches from their technicians, I had so many transactions entered it would have been a major effort to reinstall 2004, which worked wonderfully.
6 Useless Piece of Software
Money is highly prone to usability errors, and bad math. My first 3 months of usage were fine, until Money could not keep the books straight anymore, to the point where it would show thousands of dollars more in my register than actually available. I've attempted every imaginable way to fix this, including manually adjusting all the items, yet with every update Money would once again revert to prior errors. The Money support is full of lengthy and cumbersome advice on how to fix every bug imaginable (which should be a clear red flag that this software does contain every bug imaginable). I've spent days and hours trying their directions and could not get my financial info. corrected. Deleting accounts and downloading info back in left me with only 60 days worth of financial info. All in all, this software is not only a pain to use, but it can turn out to be useless and erroneous. I am back to where I started, where I keep track of my expenses on paper or Excel, as I simply cannot trust that Money can correctly track my finances. Bottom line, purchasing and using money was a waster of money. I too believed that all the other reviewers who gave it bad reviews were just not savvy enough to use this piece of software, so I learned the truth the hard way. You on the other hand can be smarter than me. Just don't buy it!
7 Great personal finance program, no problems whatsoever
I downloaded the 90-day trial version of Money Deluxe 2005 from Microsoft's website and have been testing it for the past three weeks. My conclusion is, most user "reviews" here on Amazon are simply white lies posted by people who apparently never used the program.
The trial version file is about 28MB and includes everything in the retail version, except multimedia tutorials you'll find on the retail CD-ROM. The program installed in under a minute on my P4 3.2Ghz PC. I ran it, imported my old Money file, and presto!, everything was working. The user interface is better than before, with the working area bigger than before. (The guy who says the working area is less than 1/3 is simply LYING! The work area occupies most of the screen even on a 800x600 monitor. Shame on him.) The buttons are easy to understand, although the program does have too many menus: up to three horizontal ones (not counting the menu bar menus File, Edit, ...), and one vertical one!
The program is snappy and it synced my file with my Hotmail account in no time. (You do *not* need to link it with a Hotmail or Passport account to use the password feature; Money supports local passwords.) Everything that worked before in the old version works here, but things just look better and work more smoothly. I just re-read most of the negative reviews here on Amazon and let me tell you very few of them are true, like the recent one about "Microsoft admitting this is full of bugs"; the guy who posted this is full of sh*t. Microsoft never said that; saying things like that would subject a company to lemon lawsuits. As a real-world user I've tested this program extensively (since I'm still using the trial version and I've backed up my files each night), and haven't come across any of the problems all those phony "reviews" claim. In short, the program seems rock solid. Do note that I run this under Windows XP; if you run it under Win98 (assuming it supports win98), you might experience stability issues simply because Win98 isn't a rock-solid system.
Money 2005 is feature-rich and integrates well with H&R Block's Taxcut software. Most popular financial institutions support Money; you can either download your transactions automatically into Money or do so via your bank's website, if your bank requires this manual step. One of Money's fortes is its reports feature, something users have lauded over the years. I use it extensively to check on my financial health. I don't use the investment tools much since I have a separate trader's toolkit, but Money makes it easy to manage your investments.
In short, this is definitely the best version of Money yet. No wonder magazines like PC World and PC Mag gave it five stars. Good thing their reviewers are not pants-on-fire liars like what we have here.
To be honest I'm so sick of people posting fake reviews just because this is a Microsoft product. What can I say, we live in a free country and everyone is entitled to an opinion, legit or not. I'm just glad there's a free trial version that let me know the truth. I'm ordering the retail version tonight. I urge everyone interested in personal finance software download this and try it themselves, ditto with Quicken.
8 Microsoft Admits: Full of Bugs
This product is full of bugs that Microsoft acknowledges are known issues with the product. For instance, when making a transfer with the electronic banking feature in Money enabled, the information typed in the memo field magically becomes entered in the pay to field and becomes a new payee. The problem: You get a lot of payees such as "christmas gift", "confirmation number abc123", "ski lessons"... clearly not a payee. Second, the automatic update feature is far from automatic. You must click the update box every time even if you tell Money to update at startup. There are a slew of other bugs as well. I do not recommend this product. Go with an earlier version of Money or some other software.
9 Microshafted again...
Great software if you believe that software designed to satisfy the the interests of the corporate sponsors is the reason you should pony up your hard earned money. Feature rich, yet disappointing. I downloaded the trial version when Quicken informed me that yet again I would be required to update from a usable version of their software to one that has been universally panned (another issue but since these are the only real viable choices for personal finance it's the rock and the hard place) First it would not import my Quicken files - claimed they were corrupt. Ran Quicken file repair utility and got a clean bill of health. Still would not import. So I decided to start from scratch. 20 weekend hours later I was up and running. Re-creating a budget was the most frustrating and time consuming of all tasks. Navigation between budget creation and budget category edit functions is abysmal. In fact navigation in general is poor - I frequently found myself 3 or 4 clicks away from the screen I wanted to get to - assuming I could remember the correct path at all. Some items referred to in the help could not be accessed at all UNTIL I discovered that to access them I first had to modify my "Home Page" to make them available. Poor, amateurish GUI design meant mostly to provide lots of opportunities to present various online offers. Microsoft would like users to sign up for a .Net Passport and store their data on their servers... NOT! This can be worked around however as long as you are careful to turn down all opportunities to do so.
Most unbelievable - after actually purchasing my full version copy and installing it, it would NOT OPEN MY MONEY FILE that I created in the Demo version. Claimed it could not find it or that it was read only. Uninstalled, reinstalled demo version and was able to open it right up. Reinstalled full version - same problem. Only after attempting to create a new file was I prompted to get an update that appeared to cure the problem.
I would not recommend this software nor would I buy it if there was any acceptable alternative. Unfortunately there is none. This is a product that is designed for the benefit of Microsoft and it's corporate partners - NOT the end user.
10 Works for me, although interface still not the best
There is a small army of people who, like the recalcitrant insurgents in Iraq, will do anything to try to destroy Microsoft's reputation. I'm not here to defend the biggest software company in the world. As with any company, it makes some great products, many good products, and some bad products.
I did not upgrade to Microsoft Money 2004 because, sometime in 2003, my Money file developed some kind of minor corruption ("This operation cannot be performed" error after entering certain types of transactions), and Money 2004 refused to even read the file. This time, I downloaded the trial version of Money 2005, and it loaded the old-format file without a hitch. And the mysterious error message is no more!
Money is cool because it makes it easy to keep track of your accounts, esp. for someone like me with dozens of banking and brokerage accounts (many from the days of Internet bubble when banks were giving away free money for opening accounts -- I knew I needed a real job...). It's generates useful reports to track your networth, by category or over time. Even for someone like me with lots of small accounts but little to show in the aggregate, it's immensely useful.
Should you get Money 2005, or upgrade from an earlier version?
I can't really help you with that question. But I do have a couple suggestions:
1) Download the 30-day trial copy of the program from Microsoft's website and give it a test drive. I tried it on my two laptops and both copies worked perfectly, which led me to doubt the truthfulness of a lof of these reviews from so-called "I'm not anti-Microsoft" people. (No, yours truly doesn't work for Microsoft or get paid by them in any way.)
2) For a peace of mind, make a manual backup copy of your existing Money file in Windows Explorer. Just go into My Computer or Windows Explorer, find the Money file (it's usually in "My Documents"; its extension is ".mny"), and use copy-and-paste to make a copy. Keep the backup copy in a different folder. Better yet, zip the backup copy for extra security. :)
Try the program and judge for yourself if it works fine on your PC. Not all the naysayers are liars, no doubt. But, as I always advice my friends when they ask about gadgets, movies and whatnot, always try it yourself and form your own opinions.
11 WATCH OUT--YOUR BANK MIGHT MAKE YOU UPGRADE--egads
I CANT BELIEVE IT!!! I AM BEING FORCED TO UPGRADE TO A LESS THAN ACCEPTABLE VERSION. WHY??, the only thing they said was now my transactions would automatically download. Is that a perk, I do that already! Quicken is no better, they have major problems with their new version as well, such as no longer supporting QIF files. Great, not a lot of options. Its worth it to keep what you have until you find something that most people can agree is just as good or not better that the previous versions of MS Money such as 2000 or 2001. Happy hunting!!!
12 Not as bad as I've read
I recently purchased Money Deluxe 2005. I have to admit I had a some difficulty downloading my transactions from my bank when I first starting using this program. In fact, it was down right frustrating, but since then Money Deluxe has been working very well. I'm glad I bought it and, I like the features and special offers! The $20 rebate is a definite plus, so is having the abiltity to monitor my credit report for free for one year. I also like that I was able to open an account with ING and get a $50 bonus!
13 Serious bugs
I can't remember the last time I had some much trouble with an application. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. After waiting on hold with India for one hour, tech support could only suggest that I reinstall. If you value your time, stay away from version 2005
14 It's the end of Jan, it's it's STILL not fixed
Don't believe the rare reviewers who say, "Microsoft has released updates fixing these problems"!! It's now the end of January 2005, and these problems STILL haven't been fixed. The program has been out for FIVE MONTHS.
I won't bother repeated all of the problems listed by others. One thing that REALLY made me made though wasn't covered in any of the other reviews. You know how everyone is saying they can't get online setup to work for half of their banks? Well guess what. If you can't do the online set-up to directly connect to the banks, IT WON'T EVEN LET YOU IMPORT STATEMENTS MANUALLY!!
You can have an account set up, with transactions and everything, but if you can't get the ONLINE setup working, it won't let you import. When you try to import the statement, it will only allow you to associate it with the accounts that have already gone through MSN's server.
This alone makes the software completely non-functional. Absolute and total trash.
And don't bother calling Microsoft tech support. I tried, and gave up twice after waiting for 25 minutes each (did I mention that you have to call long-distance?). Last night I finally dug my heels, and decided to wait as long as it takes. 52 minutes. FIFTY-TWO MINUTES!!! The person who answered was completely useless, and I somehow ot disconnected halfway through. So I called back, and waited only 39 minutes, only to be disconnected again.
It's nice to see that microsoft spends as much money on its tech support as it does on product testing...
15 Stay Away
This is the first time that I've felt strongly enough about a product to write a review. I've been using this software for about 2 weeks and I've decided to go back to the 2004 version, which will be painful since the file format has changed. I've been using Money for years, and prior upgrades have been worth the price, but this version is a constant source of irritation. I've also decided that I don't want my financial information on a Microsoft Web Site is required. If it were possible I've give this one negative 5 stars.
16 This software is junk
I would not recommend tracking your finances with this software.
When it works as it's supposed to, it's fine. The problem comes when you invest all of your precious time to enter your financial data, and then one of it's serious bugs causes it to become unusable.
I can't edit my paychecks now (not even change the date) because it will tell me that any edit will cause one of my 401K account balances to become negative at some point in the future. This is nonsense, of course.
Also, it crashes anytime I try to download a statement from anywhere.
I am so angry now I can't see straight (over a decade of financial records in Money and now it's junk). I surfed Microsoft's website, and I can't even find anywhere where I can send an e-mail complaint.
17 Big letdown
When I found out that with Yodlee I could connect to 2 bank accounts I haven't been able to in the past, I jumped to buying this product. I was very please with Money since my first version in 99 and my files reflect this. Now with many many many hours involved in balancing my accounts almost daily, because everything debit/credit are downloading 2 or 3 times I figure I was better without it. Some days I cannot download statements at all receiving error messages. Lets not forget all the time and long distance charges talking to their tech help. Their update managed to fix a problem with matching similar transactions but that's all. Now I'm obsessed with getting this to run smoothly. You would think Microsoft would be as determined as I am. NOT. Unless you have hours to spend don't get it. It's much easier to manually input all your accounts from the web sites and less time consuming.
18 Locks-up as unresponsive in XP Home Edition
I upgraded with the 2004 TaxCut package to MSM 2005 Deluxe from the 2003 version. After 2 hours on tech support, I still get locked up and have to use task manager to end the program. Save your money this program is crap. I had to archive all my records ('98-2004)that MSM 2003 kept w/o incident, because 2005 could not handle the data. Tech support thought that's why 2005 over charged my processor (pentium 4). Then I had to download what I had to MSM 2004 so it could convert to 2005. Apparently this lock-up is a common problem with XP users. I will likely switch to Quicken as I cannot return back to 2003 (thanks to MS tech support converting my files). Buyer Beware keep what you have if it works.
19 Here's a fix for the missing subcategory list
The reviews for Money 2005 are very good -- I suggest reading them all to see what you're in for.
The big problems for me were:
1) The ability to have separate category and subcategory lists was removed from the transaction form
2) I couldn't easily use the 'Transfer' category, especially in a split category
3) Annoying duplicate account creation
On the first problem, Money 2005 uses just one combined category-subcategory list, so when you enter a transaction, you must choose a category-subcategory from one big list. I prefer two distinct selections because it's quicker to enter and easier to find my subcategories. Microsoft provides a Registery edit in the following Knowledgebase article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;889931
I used the edit, and my separate lists are restored. Great, but I am irritated that Money 2005 removed this option and provided no way for a user to change this behavior short of a Registery hack.
On the 2nd problem, my ability to 'Transfer' amounts to different account was resolved once I split my subcategory lists from my category lists using the above Registery hack. Now, transfers operate as they did in Money 2003, which is the last version I was using.
On the 3rd problem, one financial institution has, for the 2nd time, downloaded duplicate accounts. I hope it's an anomoly, but we'll see. Other accounts operate fine.
I haven't explored the strengths of 2005 yet -- this was just post-upgrade issues I've wrestled with over the New Year's weekend. On the surface, doesn't look like much new is useful to me.
On the matter of online bill payment, I already had that through Wachovia bank (formerly First Union). I guess what's new is that Microsoft now makes bill payment through Money work with many institutions. Since Wachovia already provided this function, I don't think I'm adversely affected...or benefitted (though Wachovia dropped the $6 monthly fee for using Money's bill payment function).
One final piece of advice: after you install, don't open your Money data file unless/until you have had Money perform all its software updates. For me, I opened my Money 2003 file, was prompted to convert to Money 2005 file format, and then Money 2005 automatically downloaded software patches afterwards. Wondering whether my conversion worked right nor not, I chose to open a backup of my Money 2003 data file using the patched copy of Money 2005, so any software bug fixes related to data conversion were already installed in Money 2005.
I gave it a 2-star rating based solely on the upgrade process. This upgrade, bad as it was, was better than when I upgraded from Money 2000 to Money 2001!
20 As if 2004 was bad enough, 2005 takes the lead
So, after being an idiot and upgrading to 2004, I thought 2005 would be an improvement. Yes, I am a mega-idiot to think there are any improvements other than requirement to login to .net, there is no way to select categories as previously release where you could put in category, then type..(and no way to change it). I won't parrot the other reviews. They got the nail on the head. My next upgrade will be to Quicken.
21 Disappointed, I am going back to MS Money 2004
I upgraded/updated to MS Money Deluxe 2005 two weeks ago and should have listened to the previous reviewers. The upgrade deleted categories, created duplicative accounts and generally messed up 10 years of personal financial data. It appears that this software has become complicated to the point that it is counter productive. Given that Quicken 2005 also gets terrible reviews, I recommend just staying with what you have until either Microsoft or Intuit get their act together. I am hoping that I can restore my previous Money 2004 file and get my "money" back on this dog.
22 If you just loved 2003 or 2004 You'll despise 2005!!
Oh gosh where do I begin, #1 Money Express (bill alerts) is gone. They want you to in turn use .NET to view all your important data online and you still don't have bill alert. Who in their right minds wants their financial data online!! Schmucks. #2 For some strange reason I thought I could import QIF files successfully into Money, this is so funny. Money tried to perform complex math such as addition and subtraction and I could not get a correct balance to save my life. I was shocked that the program just couldn't add/subtract at all. #3 If you for some chance get curious and decide to try MSN Money (.NET/Passport), Money 2005 will lock your Money file and you'll have to sign into .NET to view your money file. They say it protects your file. I think it just makes it easier for them to spy since you've logged into the .NET. Ok After some frustration, I decided to heck with it I'll try to go back to 2003. Gosh what was I thinking. 2003 couldn't open the 2005 file and kept asking me for the .NET password that I typed in correctly but the program says is wrong. Cool, so I'll just install 2005 and open the file and just deal with it. 2003 somehow corrupted the file and backup file just by looking at it so I lost ALL my financial data. I beg you PLEASE PLEASE don't upgrade to 2005. Im sticking with 2003 and I have Quicken 2005 as a back up. Sometimes less is more. Gosh the team that wrote 2005 should all be led out to pasture. Im posting the software to ebay for $-5.00, I'll pay them to take it from me! Also don't buy the software in the store like I did w/o reading reviews first. I bought it thinking, "I like 2003, 2005 will be much better". Boy was I wrong.
23 Just what I need but bad support
The Good:
Finally, a personal finance product that does the work for me! Thanks to Microsoft's use of Yodlee I am able to have Money connect automatically to my credit cards and bank accounts and AUTOMATICALLY (that is the most important part) download the latest transactions, run them through my budget and within seconds tell me where I stand for the month. I do nothing and know where I stand on my budget. It has taken too many years for Quicken/Money to get to this point.
The bad:
I got everything working fine and suddenly the software stopped automatically downloading my latest transactions. I emailed tech support and they got back to me the next day with some things to try. These things did not work. They said to email back if I needed more help. I have responded twice (got confirmation that my issue was submitted) and have not received a response. Very shocking to have this come from Microsoft. I will have to start all over now and hope it doesn't break a second time. Also, their help is atrocious. It does not cover all of the features. For example, there is a way to see and edit a list of all the categories and subcategories. If you run a search for "category" none of the help items mention this capability.
I had Quicken in the past. The reason I am using Money over Quicken right now is because of the automatic download of transactions. Quicken has a *very* limited number of banks that support their form of automatic transaction downloads. It is disappointing, because in my opinion Quicken is so much more powerful than Money. For example, in my current situation Money does not allow me to export all of the categories and budget settings I have into a new file (or if it does I cannot locate it in Help and tech support will not get back to me). Quicken has that option.
24 If only this program knew how to add.
Thank goodness I realized the mistake on the capital gains form or else I would have been in a lot of trouble with the IRS. It seems if you modify downloaded transactions in a certain way they appear on the transaction register correctly but when you go to calculate capital gains it can't pull up the correct numbers. This mistake is serious to the point of making the whole program useless, and Microsoft has ignored my request for support where I notify them of this situation. And if this makes you want to switch to Quicken Premier it shouldn't, because that program can't always add correctly either. So I guess both of these programs are scandals, but I must say I do prefer the Microsoft interface by far. Just don't touch the downloaded transactions and double check the math by hand.
25 The worst program I have seen yet from Microsoft
I owned Money 2004 and when I heard about 2005 coming out I was glad to see that they had added many more financial institutions. After purchasing it, it did not take long to figure out how bad this program really is. After I installed the program it supposedly imported my information from my 2004 version but when I tried to synchronize the accounts nothing worked. Also the credit monitoring section did not even work so I could not get my credit score from within the program. It worked perfectly fine in 2004 version. When I called Microsoft and held for over 30 minutes paying toll charges all they had to say is that they know about the problem but do not have a fix. After almost 2 weeks there was finally an update released and it seemed like it worked for a little while. Then all of a sudden I can no longer synchronize my accounts. I call them again and hold for another 30 minutes and I get the same answer I got the 1st time. Now 10 days later I am sitting here on hold again with an estimated wait time of 45 minutes and I will probably get the same answer. If you want software that doesnt work and will waste hours of time on hold with Microsoft then go ahead and get this product. Otherwise I would suggest buying a different program without the Microsoft name on it.
26 Money Express bill reminder - Gone
Paying bills on time is important, very important; it affects your credit score, annual percentage rates, etc. When Money Express bill reminder was removed from Money 2005, it was a real let down for me. It left me with a feeling that Microsoft really doesn't care. I also wondered if the MS Money team actually use their own software for personal finance management; perhaps they all have CPAs.
In this edition, you must open Money manually any time you wish to view upcoming and due bills. In prior versions and dependent upon the option you chose, Money Express would display a window or flash a system tray icon at each bootup. If the PC was already running and a bill became due, the system tray icon would begin to flash. There was no need to open Money, bill reminders were automatic.
Installment loan payments still do not increment the payment number in the loan registry. I have to manually add the payment number each time.
That said, some Money users have found benefit in upgrading to Money 2005 for other features they use.
27 Not Reliable
Reliability is key for use of a product that has your whole financial life in its clutches. Everything was going OK until I downloaded the "update". What a mistake. Since then I have not been able to connect to my bank. Today, Money tells me the system date on my computer is earlier than the date I downloaded the demo version I am using (I have a licensed version of Money 2002 and downloaded the 2005 demo). WRONG!
Stay away unless you thrive on frustration.
When will these companies figure out reliability is more important than incremental new features?
28 Recent upgrade solves many problems
It's clear that the original Money 2005 was not adequately tested. When I installed a few weeks ago on top of Money 2004, it trashed everything, and almost nothing worked. However, today there is a new update of the software, and after a few special maneuvers (you have to go find the old Money 2004 file and let the new software convert it over) everything seems to be more-or-less fine.
Before the update, if you are a user of an earlier version of Money, this version would barely qualify for one star. Now that they have fixed (many of?) the bugs, I gave it four.
29 buggy
Money is a decent program to keep track of your finances. I've used it for years. And I bought this to upgrade 2001. Unfortunately, I am really disappointed. I just don't see the value in the upgrade.
And could Microsoft add insult to injury? Yup, this program is full of bugs. I've had it lock up on me. Throw out of memory exceptions in Visual Studio. And a plethora of little oddities.
Take a look if you don't currently have software to manage your money. But, don't waste your money if you have an older version.
30 Very unhappy so far...
I downloaded the trial and installed it yesterday. I'm not upgrading from a previous version of Money- it's all from scratch. My experience so far is that, the product would be a joy to use, and the many features would be very useful, if it all worked. Here's what happened:
I set up several accounts to track various checking accounts and credit cards, and it all seemed to go well- I was impressed. However, when I attempted to create an "American Express Card" account, for some reason two are created, the first called "American Express Card" and the second "American Express Card #2". I deleted both and tried again a couple times with the same result. The second account is automatically updated with transactions downloaded from the Amex website, while the first remains empty.
So I attempted to delete the first (empty) Amex account, and a dialog appeared saying that if that account is deleted, all my "American Express Card" accounts will be deleted, prompting the question "WHY?". Anyway, I decided to simply "close" the first account so that it would not appear in my account list and I wouldn't have to worry about it. I should have left it that.
While working with the second account, however, I noticed the "Merge duplicate accounts" in the left hand pane, so I reopened the first Amex (empty) account, and then attempted to merge the two Amex accounts. The dialog that appears is confusing, but I saw two drop-down lists. I chose the first Amex account from the first list, and the second from the second list and hit the merge button. Both accounts promptly disappeared from my accounts list.
Upon investigation it appears that I apparently misunderstood the dialog and merged each account with two entirely different bank accounts, so that all my Amex transactions are mixed in with my Bank of America transactions, and there's no way to undo any of it. The only thing to be done as far as I can tell is to delete all my Money accounts and set them up again from scratch, and just hide any duplicate empty accounts that Money creates and forget them.
Perusing the help, I saw the Contact Us link and decided to send some feedback Microsoft's way. However, clicking the link opened an Internet Explorer window to a Microsoft generic web page indicating that the "page you are looking for does not exist". This is a less than stellar user experience, obviously.
The trial version doesn't expire for me until February, so I'm going to continue to evaluate it. The product does have some useful features that I'm hoping to take advantage of, but again, you can release a product with a million features, but if they don't work, then they might as well not exist.
--- update ---
Continuing to evaluate, I recreated my Bank Of America account using the "New account" wizard. After I provided the wizard with my username and password to login to my BofA account online to download my statements, it was unable to connect to the account. I tried several times, and then decided to download the statements and import them manually. However, when attempting to import, the "Import a file" dialog box asked me to select the account to import into from a drop-down list, but my Bank of America account was not in the list. I closed and reopened the program and tried again, same result. I'm stymied. My only option appears to be to click the "New" button in the import a file dialog in order to create a brand new account in which to import my statement, but not only am I asked questions that I wasn't asked when creating the account via the "New account" wizard (why?), but in the end, I'm going to end up with two Bank of America accounts, one of which I will have to delete.
Why doesn't my Bank of America account appear in the import a file dialog drop-down list? Not only would this save a lot of hassle, it's what's SUPPOSED to happen. Again, great features, but if they don't work, then they're not features.
31 2005 version worth trying - Don't believe all the negatives
Microsoft Money 2005 appears to be a solid product based on my experience to date. I upgraded from money 2004, and I have not encountered anything that would prevent me from continuing to use Money 2005.
I was wary of the product after reading the negative feedback so I downloaded the trial version before buying. (I definitely recommend this approach before purchasing.) Money 2005 will convert your file to the new version, however it does make a copy of your existing file in the event you choose to return to your previous version of Money. (If you're not comfortable with Money's automated method of creating a copy of your original file, then manually make your own copy or backup file)
After converting my file and using Money 2005 I found most everything to function as it did in the 2004 version, and I didn't find anything too unusual or out of place. I do keep my file password protected; however I do not use the Passport password feature (I use the local Money file password) because I do not feel the need to check my finances from other computers via the internet. The password feature works the same in 2005 as it did in the 2004 version.
In spite of my positive remarks, there are two negative responses I have read that I must concede to those who have responded before me:
First, after installing my purchased version of Money 2005 I was prompted to download software updates from the internet. The fact that software updates are necessary makes me think there may be some validity to the complaints of bugs from the early adopters of the software.
Second, the file conversion process did indeed change my Food:Dining out and Food:Groceries subcategories into new "Dining Out" and "Groceries" stand alone categories respectively, and eliminated the existing subcategories. Every transaction that was once associated with Food:Groceries was transformed to the "Groceries" category and the same for the dining out transactions.
I'm not opposed to the new categories, but the installation process should have asked me if I wanted to change my categories or leave my existing categories as is.
I prefer the previous subcategories so I simply went into the "set up your categories" option and changed the "Groceries" category to a subcategory under the "Food" category, and I did the same with dining out. This changed all the transactions back to the categorization that I am accustomed to.
As for the complaints about Money requiring a Passport ID and logon, it's not true.
It is true that in order to take advantage of certain software features you must have a Passport ID and password. Those three features are:
1) Automated transaction updates and balancing at pre determined intervals,
2) Receive automated updates from institutions not using OFX (Open Financial Exchange) protocol,
3) Review your Money information from any computer connected to the internet
The steps to create a new file without the Passport password is:
File ==> New File
Click "Next"
DECLINE the "Protect your Online privacy and Security" option
Answer "YES" that you want to continue without a Passport
Then create a local password, or select the "I do not want to use a password for my Money file" option.
Why did I upgrade: 1) my financial institution is now in the list of supported on-line institutions, and 2) I take advantage of the FREE Federal tax filing option with H&R Block offered with the purchase of the Money software each year. In doing so it saves me the $25+ filing fee thus reducing the net cost of the software to a more than reasonable price.
If you are considering updating to the new version I definitely recommend downloading the trial version and giving it a try. And don't believe all the horror stories from the few that have not taken the time to completely understand the new version.
32 New Version Works for Me...
While I sympathize with those who have had trouble, my experience with Money Deluxe 2005 has been great. I like the new web-look interface. The menus and screens are soft, yet detailed and easy to read. I turned OFF the distracting advertisements, I have never used a passport account to use Money products, and I continue to download my bank statements into my Money account from a "Non-subscribing to Bill-Payer" bank. The upgrade was seamless - my previous version (Money 2004) was automatically uninstalled at my bidding. My payee categories are unchanged - my auto bill payment ledger is intact. I did have one stock that I sold 'bout 6 months ago showing in the downloaded quotes. Easy fix - removed it from the list of quotes to be tracked.
I changed over from Quicken in 2000 and have bought the new version every year. The Money interface is user-friendly and easy to navigate. The price after rebate is more than fair.
33 Privacy invasion
Not only do you end up letting Microsoft have access to your credit details etc if you sign up for the 'Free Services', but also you end up getting Advertising links appearing on your computer installing or upgrading it.
This is NOT the sort of things one would expect from such a large company, and it is sad that they resort to such low acts.
My 'Money Tip', is save your money or better spend it elsewhere and maintain your privacy and keep an advertisment free computer.
34 SPYWARE ALERT!
I'm horrified by this product and will not consider using it, here's why:
When you use its online statement download feature you have to provide a .NET password login in order to proceed, as this is done YOUR FINANCIAL INFORMATION IS UPLOADED to the MSN Money site without any warning and without your consent. In this age of rampant identity theft, do you dare to have all your financial information posted online?
I found this out running the trial version and I'm staying with Money 2003.
35 Microsoft Money 2005 has a TON of problems!
I have been a MASSIVE MS-Money fan and user for over 10 years now and loved it - until now. I have stuck with 2003 for the past 2 years, and finally decided to upgrade. BIG MISTAKE! I was really interested in the online capabilities, since online bill pay was something I was not doing until recently. I have only played with it for 3 hours this evening but here is what I have already run into:
1. Setting up a previously manual account for online services creates a duplicate account. Worse yet, you cannot merge it with the original account since Money does not recognize it as the same account. THIS IS A NASTY BUG. You cannot get around it, as far as I can tell. It's a show-stopper.
2. During the account online update process duplicate categories (budget categories) are also created. TONS OF THEM. It more than doubled the number of categories that I had. For example, my category "Auto Service" was duplicated to "Auto Service-#1", and "Auto Service-#2", with no transactions in them. What's up with that?
3. When I updated my account online it says it added 94 new transactions, but only 1 of them showed up in the register. I have no idea where the other 93 of them went. They were not existing transactions.
4. The online information for my bank is completely out of date. It DOES offer online updates (I called them), but Money says it does not. Pretty useless.
And that's just in 3 hours. It tells me that 2005 was released WAY before it was thoroughly tested - Just in time for the 2004 Holiday Season<G>. Shame on you Microsoft AND shame on you PC Magazine for writing such a glowing review about it. Apparently you never TRIED the online features, or you would have noticed this stuff in a matter of minutes.
Now it's time to see if Microsoft will at least honor the 30 day money back guarantee, cause I'm going back to version 2003 for sure. IMHO - you should avoid this version at all costs, at least until they get it it solid with some more patches - not yet available I hear.
36 No real added functionality over previous versions
I have been using Money 2002 since its release and find it really usefull for tracking bank accounts and stocks. I have never found the added features beyond this basic functionality all that useful, if not broken. I recently downloaded the trial version off of Microsoft's web site and installed on my second machine. Read the fine print if you do this -- you will end up with an upgraded database that is not backwards compatible. I will not be upgrading to the 2005 version. While some of the annoying bugs have been fixed (displays not fitting on the screen with no scroll bars), I find that the basic functionality that I need has not changed from my earlier purchased version. The other features still don't work all that well for me and I don't feel like spending money for a new look and feel. On the positive note, their online banking seems to be simplified somewhat and it seems to work a little better than the older version, but not enough for me to want to upgrade. Sometimes the whistles and bells just get in the way with software and this is certainly the case for Money '05. If you are not upgrading and looking for a money management software package, I would recommend this software for you. Its relatively easy to use and seems to work pretty well. On an interesting note, I looked at the reviews here when the 2003 and 2004 versions were released and they were mostly negative. Looking back after a year, the reviewed comments improved. the trend seems to be general complaints after the initial release and then more positive comments referring to the 'previous' versions for the new upgrades. If you are not sure, download the trial version from Microsoft and see if it works for you -- you have until January 2005. I'll give Microsoft 4 stars for the trial program. Without it I probably would have upgraded and been very disapointed.
37 ALARMED!!!!!!!!!! Loosing Features
What is happening to MS Money that good and necessary customer features are being stripped out of the program???
It took some years for Money to offer multi-currency support but in the latest version they have restricted the feature so that users can not create custom currencies - forcing the user to select from an incomplete set of preset currencies.
This is a backward step... and as I can see others are concerned about similar kinds of change issues.
Unfortunately it seems that Intuit is making the same kind of version-rot mis-steps as well with Quicken somehow the finacial software buisness has lost focus.
I suggest that the software developers need to actually use the application just like the rest of us - then they would see such glaring faults. All experienced users of these programs can tell within a few minutes of trying that things are not right - I just can't imagine why the guys writing the stuff don't see them. It seems that Money 2003 or 2004 remain the options for now.
What about some really new features rather that tweaks and deletions. Can you imaging a shopping planner for grocery and other shopping list? One of the keys to managing your money is to track and plan your expenses to allow you to save and invest. The programs seem to over look the value of being able to track the cost of items from store to store and the convience of prepareing a shopping list with recommendations of which stores are best to buy at. The whole area of expense management needs more focus.
38 Finally Just What I Wanted
I've been a faithful devotee of MS Money for years, upgrading annually. I was absolutely thrilled today to install Money 2005 and finally be able to automatically download financial data from every financial institution I use. In the past I had to go to Bank of America's online site and MBNA's online site and download acitve money files to import into the program, but other financial institutions would import automatically. Now, they all do. It take a few seconds each time I open Money, and I never have to open my web browser. Further, I've got data going back over five years, and upgrading was a snap with no lost data or problems with duplicate accounts, etc. I like the flexibility of 2 options for the register, new this year. I just wish you could customize the register colors for differnet accounts. Overall, I think this is the best Money yet and I think it was more worth the upgrade price than any previous version.
39 MS Money 2005 is a Disaster
I made the mistake of being an early adopter and upgrading from 2004 to 2005. Yikes! MS changed the way that the product downloads financial data from institutions, and they obviously didn't put together a real-world test plan, or they would have uncovered the bugs that plague this version. I had to "roll-back" to Money 2004 in order to get everything working again.
Here's two examples of fatal problems:
1. I have an IRA account at Vanguard. So does my wife. And we have a Joint Money Market Fund account. Money 2005 doesn't understand that the Joint account is ONE account. First it downloads my IRA data and the joint account info. Then it downloads her IRA data and then sees the joint account and thinks it is a 2nd account! Now I have TWO joint accounts and (supposedly) double the money. You can't stop it from doing this - there's no way to turn that off. And if you delete the account, it thinks you want to delete ALL the accounts at Vanguard. OMG.
2. I manage an account for my MOM. It's her money. I have a 2nd Money 2004 "data file" with just her account info on it. Money 2005 downloads her account info into my data file, so it appears as part of my family assets. It's not - it's my MOM's money. You can't tell Money 2005 to ignore an account at a financial institution like you could with 2004. It's all or nothing.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS UPGRADE UNTIL MICROSOFT FIXES THESE BUGS AND ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THESE ARE NOT ISOLATED EVENTS BUT REAL PROBLEMS.
By the way, I contacted Microsoft Support, and the tech said that the Product Team was sorry I was having the problem and I should take advantage of the 30-day money back guarantee to get a refund. Unfortunately I did not keep every scrap of original packaging, so I am unable to do that. I have nothing against MS, I am a shareholder and have been a long-time Money user. But this cake ain't baked yet. Stay away.
40 Yikes!
Where do I even start? Just to let you know, I'm not really adding anything new that already has been said in previous reviews. I'm just confirming.
I'll give you a bottom line first: If you have Money 2003 or 2004, stay with it! DO NOT UPGRADE!!! There is no reason to, it has nothing new/original and it does not do anything better than the two previous versions.
Negatives:
1) Re-catagorizes - I had "dining out" and "groceries" under "food", now they are their own separate main category.
2) Duplicate accounts - By getting transactions from institutions, it created duplicate accounts. Had to delete the account(s) and stop the service.
3) Sharing data on the web - seemed to duplicate accounts too.
4) Credit center - does not work if you are upgrading - this is a known bug.
Positives:
1) Still trying to find one. . . OK, the interface may be a little nicer.
I bought it and I'm even going to stick with it now that I have a few weeks of transactions, going back (finding a suitable compatable backup, uninstalling/reinstalling 2004 and re-entering transactions) is now too painful. But, I have to admit, I've entertained the thought many times.
Even getting this for free is questionable. I'm a big fan of these personal finance software packages. I've never felt so in control of my life and finances. Money 2005 is better than having nothing, I guess. There, thought of another positive.
41 Learning from the pain of others
I have not upgraded and, after reading the various reviews here, will promptly tell Money 2004 to quit giving me the opporutnity to upgrade. When 1 or 2 people experience problems, that can be written off to user error or some quirky setting on the user's computer. But when there are many users saying the same thing...well, Caveat Emptor big time!
Thanks to all you who took the time to warn others. Shame on you Mr. Gates.
42 Do not upgrade or buy
I have used Money for 7 years and upgraded each year. I have been very satisfied with the quality until this year. This is plainly a disaster. Initially I was put thru an endless stream of tests which mostly assumed that my installation or computer was at fault. When I did a search on the web for Money bugs I found that many others were having the same problems. When I mentioned this, they admitted to 'working on fixes' and then basically threw their hands up. How useful is that? and when will these dozens of fixes be made available. I knew I was in trouble when I bought it the day it was released and by the time it arrived from Amazon, the first time I tried to run it I had to download a large patch. Reverting to 2004 requires each account to be exported individually and is a very time consuming alternative to just reentering all my transactions over again. I strongly suggest you don't buy this product, at least until there are consistently good reviews for at least 1 month.
43 New Users Also Get Robbed.
A lot of folks here are upgrade users, but as a new user of Money, migrating from Quicken, by the way, I can report equally infuriating experiences with this software. I moved to Money purely for its online capabilities, and guess what--THEY DO NOT WORK. I've experienced most of the problems described in previous posts here...including duplicate entries, an inability to download financial data accurately, etc. etc. etc.
44 Money Like It's 2002 - Good Software, Frustrating Upgrade
I've used MS Money since 2000, and upgraded in the past from Money 2000 to Money 2002 without incident. Not this year.
Upgrading from Money 2002 to Money 2005 with all the new web features was a major headache. When I tried setting up online services for my existing accounts (web synching with the MS Passport), some of my accounts disappeared and could not be recovered. Some accounts became duplicated, and the account merge functionality did not allow me to merge them (it listed the wrong accounts). It also reassigns some categories, like Groceries, without telling you. Uncool.
I ended up disabling the Passport online options and now I'm using the program just like Money 2002, which is fine, I guess, but not exactly what I wanted.
If you are starting to use personal finance software for the first time, I highly recommend this product and give it 4 stars.
If you are upgrading and have many accounts like I do, I offer can only give this product 2 stars. You may have better luck that me, though.
Average: 3 stars.
45 Do Not Upgrade!
As another experienced Money user (more than 6 years), I'm sorry that I didn't read these reviews before upgrading. After converting my current file, I found so many errors that I immediately contacted Microsoft support. I'm still working with them but have rolled back to Money 2004. In its present form I cannot use Money 2005 at all.
Examples: Bills & Deposits - numerous duplicate entries, reflecting reconciled transactions as much as 18 moths old,
Portfolio - all stock sales reported as credits to my cash account; I am hundreds of thousands in the red ;-)
Portfolio - stock splits create twice as many shares as it should
Downloaded transactions are reported as credits when my bank has them as debits.
I even tried starting from scratch, i.e., using a "new" Money file but many of the same errors occurred again.
While the new interface is nice but will take some getting used to - in this case, beauty is only skin deep.
46 Inexcusable
See my review for Money 2005 Small Business. This is a classic product calling for a "zero star" rating. Go to the microsoft.money.public newsgroup on Usenet and you will see complaint after complaint about features, such as online banking, that simply do not work properly and could not have been tested.
If you upgrade to Money 2005, here is what is in store for you: Money creating duplicate accounts, merging accounts and then pouring over hundreds of duplicate transactions, Money refusing to merge some duplicate accounts because it misidentified them, investments "corrected" by Money with the wrong amount resulting in incorrect balances, Money refusing to match some transactions, Money trying to update closed accounts and erroring out on them...but wait, there's more.
Money 2005 will also, at no extra charge, remove helpful features from the interface and turn entire menu selections into huge ads for MSN and other sponsored products. This is the most ad-ridden version of Money to date, and most of the ads can't be turned off. The interface is pretty but horrible. The home page is now two columns only. Sorry if you have a high resolution, that's too bad for you, you'll get two really wide columns.
Worst of all, the program is SLOW. Slower than ever. And several times it will max out the CPU for MINUTES at a time.
I moved to Quicken. Quicken is ugly but, you know what, it works. I deeply resent the week of fruitless troubleshooting with Microsoft support cue card readers and the weekend I spent converting my data to Quicken. But I'm glad I did it, because Quicken is FAST, Quicken works, and, unlike Money, Quicken was designed for adults, not learning disabled two year olds. Yes, it looks ugly and cluttered, but what do you want? A pretty program that screws everything up or an ugly one that does everything you want it to?
47 Missing features and 2 year time out
I am a MS Money fan so was quick to get the 05 version. Well I am uninstalling and rolling back to last years version!
First there is a new Internet Services Policy you must agree to. It starts out with "Microsoftš Money 2005 includes up to two (2) years of Internet-based Services. You will be able to use the Internet-based Services in Microsoft Money 2005 for a period of two (2) years from installation of the product or until September 1, 2007, whichever is earlier."
**** In two years you can not perform online banking!!!
Second the little Money Express program that reminds you of upcoming bills is gone.
I have 3 words for this program - Do Not Upgrade!
Stay With Your Current Version
48 Money 2005 and SP2
I have used both Microsoft Money and Quicken for years now, to do comparision testing of the two products. One of the new features in Money 2005 is the ability to share the file with other users. This requires that you put your data on the Microsoft Money website. Once that is done you can specify which other NET Pasport users can access and update the data. However this feature DOES NOT currently work with Windows XP Service Pack 2, as confirmed by Microsoft Technical Support. I find that inexcusable since SP2 was out before Money 2005.
49 Bugs Galore
Migrated from Microsoft Money 2004 to Microsoft Money 2005 last week and have been fighting with the program to get it to run properly. Spent an hour with Microsoft support in Bangalore this morning - they were very knowledgeable and tried to be helpful but they couldn't get a net worth report to run without the program crashing. Like most Microsoft programs. before version three, let it be. I'll wait a few weeks until they offer another update patch to see if that works unless they recall the software and refund my money.
50 Deeply disappointing upgrade
I've used Money Deluxe 2001, 2003 and 2004 and have been a happy user so far, but this upgrade is in a (low) class of its own,
basically because Money 2005 seems to be unable to convert my existing Money 2004 file properly, so it just freezes whenever
I load that file and the "conversion" supposedly has completed. And according to Money 2004 my file isn't corrupt!
So I will stick with Money 2004 and try to return Money 2005.
If you're considering to buy Money 2005, wait until a trial version is available from the Microsoft website (supposedly around October 2004) and give that a try.
51 Stick with your old version and use it to track the savings
Before I get into a review, let me state that I have ALWAYS been pro-Microsoft. Despite all the monopolizing and heavy-handedness and rushed updates, I have always felt they did more good than harm. I have yet to find a Microsoft product I didn't like... until now.
In a word, Microsoft Money 2005 is "horrible". I only gave it 2 stars because it still beats paper and pen :)
Now, if you're a new user, you probably won't notice anything bad about it and will continue on your merry way. Bravo for you (just don't do anything online until they release the second patch (yes, there's already one out) since 2005 is apparently quite broken with respect to about 50% of the institutions it claims to support).
If you're a previous Money user, pocket your $30 and invest it, using your old version to track the savings. I was terribly disappointed in 2005. To begin with, helpful features such as Bill Minder, "dual category lists", "in-register" spending forecast and upcoming bills, are gone. What have they been replaced with? I have no clue. As far as I can tell, they've replaced them with a HUGE toolbar (a la MSN Explorer but without the option to resize) and a LOT of white space (the register displays about 30 lines max (on "compressed" view) and runs literally down to the bottom of the screen.)
The home page actually displays less information (though it is prettier in a way) and the settings "menu" is a fiasco (again, much like MSN Explorer) with numerous hyperlinks that are not necessarily intuitive.
From what I could tell, reconciliation seemed to work as expected, but seemed to offer less information than 2003 did. I did not even take the time to get into investing since I uninstalled 2005 within 24 hours (and I am, without doubt, a "give it time" kind of person). I honestly felt like I had less control over my finances (or at least less information with which to make informed decisions) and didn't want to risk botching up my portfolio.
That's about it. I know it's a short review and probably leaves many questions unanswered, but I had only invested 24 hors in 2005 so a "roll back" to 2003 was fairly straightforward (and evidently necessary). To take more time would have meant a more difficult reversal. Again, I normally like MS products, but I can promise you this one will be going back to Redmond at their expense (30-day Money Back Guarantee).
I would STRONGLY recommend against buying Money 2005. It just isn't worth the money (I honestly wouldn't even take it free now). I can see no enhanced functionality and it actually appears reduced in places. The interface has been radically changed and, aside from being pretty, actually reduced my sense of "control" over my finances. Again, if you're brand new to Microsoft Money, I think you'll be satisfied. However, if you're a previous user... well... you've been warned...
PS Did I tell you that Money automatically (read: "Did not ask") reorganized my categories? It decided to treat "Dining out" as its own primary category instead of as a subcategory of "Food", effectively reorganizing over 100 transactions. This might have been OK if Money had asked, but it didn't. Makes me wonder what else was changed without my approval...
