Customer Reviews

H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + eFile [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

The H&R At Home Deluxe Federal + E-file CD received from Amazon installs quickly enough. On attempting to start the installed program I immediately receive a message saying that At Home is not running on the computer it was originally installed on. That's silly because this is the only computer I have. But I follow the suggestion to un-install, then re-install the software. I get the same result, At Home won't start.

My on-line chat with H&R Support eventually leads to their request to check into Microsoft Update and install any missing "Critical" updates. There are none. But there are some "Important" ones. However, they're for programs I don't have (e.g., Office 2003, Server 2005, etc.) or don't want (e.g., Internet Explorer 8). H&R Support can't be any more specific about which updates might be necessary and I can't tell from the explanations of the updates which one(s) might affect At Home's inability to know where it's running.

I'm stuck.

I'm not going to install 8 updates willy-nilly, hoping one (or more) of them will solve the problem. At Home is obviously checking some internal value somewhere that tells it where it thinks it was installed against some value stored in the bowels of 64-bit Windows Vista, but H&R Support can't tell me what At Home is looking for.

So I still have no clue why At Home won't even start up. Has anyone else stumbled across this problem in 64-bit Vista (w/Service pack 1) and solved it? If not, I'm going to have to return H&R Block At Home (2009) and see if I have any better luck with Turbo-Tax for 2009.

I'm frustrated because last year I switched from Turbo Tax to H&R Block Tax Cut and found it easy and simple to use. Oh, well, back to Turbo Tax.


*** Update, Jan 12th, 2010 ***

An H&R At Home representative contacted me at home (no pun intended!) after reading the above review. He apologized for the failure and said that I had encountered a known problem that wasn't related to "critical" Vista-64 updates. The problem affects some but not all Vista-64 users. Anyway, nothing I might have done during or as a result of the on-line chat would have solved my problem. He said they have a fix in hand for the problem and that they expect to have it available for download on Jan 15th. All in all, well handled by H&R and a good public relations endeavor. My opinion of them has risen substantially as a result of our conversation.

There are two bugs that affect H&R Block At Home 2009 for some Apple Mac users. Since both problems prevent customers from updating the program from the H&R Block web servers, customers must correct both problems manually before any updates from H&R Block are possible.

Who it affects: Mac customers who both: 1) have multiple login accounts on the Mac and 2) attempt to run H&R Block At Home 2009 from a non-admin account.

Problem #1: During the installation process the initial update fails due to file permissions. Error message is: "1008:5,-5000 Access denied error. You do not have enough access privileges for this installation"

Resolution: 1) Stop the program installation and log in under the admin account, 2) open a Finder window, 3) open the Applications folder, 4) uninstall the H&R Block 2009 program by dragging the icon to the Trash, 5) in the Finder window open the Utilities folder, 6) run the Disk Utility program, 7) select your hard drive as the disk upon which to operate, 8) click on the "Repair Disk Permissions" button and wait for that process to complete, 9) reinstall the H&R Block 2009 program under the admin account.

Problem #2: When running H&R Block 2009 using a non-admin login account, the program crashes immediately upon launch due to file permissions. Error message is: "Initialization Failed. Exception thrown during initialization: File open failed. File = /Users/Shared/H&R Block/2009/update.tim in open:MacFileWriterImpl"

Resolution: 1) Exit the program and log in under the admin account, 2) open a Finder window, 3) open the Macintosh HD icon, 4) open the Users folder, then the Shared folder, then the H&R Block folder, 5) right-click on the 2009 folder, 6) select "Get Info" on the menu, 7) on the pop-up window in the "Sharing & Permissions" section set ALL permissions that say "Read Only" to instead say "Read & Write", 8) return to the Finder window and open the 2009 folder, 9) right-click on the update.tim file, 10) select "Get Info" on the menu, 11) on the pop-up window in the "Sharing & Permissions" section set ALL permissions that say "Read Only" to instead say "Read & Write".

Upon successful resolution of both of these problems the customer will be able to run H&R Block 2009 from a non-admin account to do their taxes. As of the date of this note however (1/22/2010) all program updates must still be made using the admin account.

I discovered and diagnosed this on my own machine. Fortunately I'm a geek and so was able to figure out the problem & share it with others. Obviously H&R Block did not test this scenario before they shipped the program. Dunno if a similar problems exists on Windows machines. Also dunno if there will be further problems when I download & install the State program. I haven't gotten that far yet.

UPDATE Problem #3: I installed the Maryland state program tonight (1/27) when it became available for download. Given the problems above I used the admin account to do the install and then switched back to my normal account. Ran the program: no Maryland state tax program installed! And you're only allowed to download it one time without paying again! Turns out the state program downloads into the directory ~/Library/Application Support/H&RBlock/2009/ (for non-techies ~ means starting at your home directory) and a non-shared plugin is created. This thwarts other accounts from using the state program.

Resolution: Using a Finder window in the admin account copy the file ~/Library/Application Support/H&RBlock/2009/Completed Updates/md.dmg (for other states replace md.dmg with your state's abbreviation e.g. va.dmg for Virginia.) Paste this into a shared directory such as Macintosh HD/Users/Shared. Go back into your normal account and copy that same file from the Shared directory into your own ~/Library/Application Support/H&RBlock/2009/Completed Updates/ directory. Double click on that file (md.dmg in my case.) A new window will pop up and you'll see a new file which starts with your state's two-letter abbreviation. In my case it was called MD.TCstate09. Double click on that file. Another window will pop up which says it is installing the state plug-in. After that, you'll be able to use the state program under your normal user account as you intended.

Don't ask me how to update all of this mess at this point when H&R Block is ready to push out new program updates. Do you use the admin account? The user account? Who knows? It might even depend upon whether you are updating the Federal or the State return. What a mess!

H&R Block really blew it this year on multi-user account support, at least on the Macs. I tried relaying this to their Customer Service (3 phone calls and 2 online Chat sessions) but they had no one who understood the Macs and no way for me to email to them my diagnosis and solutions. They were nice and tried to be helpful but I'm not sure they got exactly what I was saying. I hope so though.

I have liked H&R Block in the past and they are cheaper than TurboTax. This year, however, makes it difficult to remain a loyal customer. We'll see what I do in tax year 2010.

Anyway, I hope my pain is able to help other Mac users get up and running.

I like Taxcut a lot.

But you have to be very careful when buying it. If you want want to use the program to do your state taxes, be sure to look closely at the box/product to be sure that you are entitled to a free download of the state program. Obviously, the price tends to be lower if the product does not entitle you to the state program for your taxes.

I have used H&R Block's TaxCut program (predecessor to H&R Block at Home) for several years and have been very pleased - it does a good job, and is easy to navigate.

This year I ordered H&R Block at Home that was clearly labeled as being a CD, requiring a CD-ROM drive; that is exactly what I have - a CD drive, but not a DVD drive. When it arrived, I put the CD (or what looked like a CD) in the drive, but it did not open, even though the drive acted like it was opening the program. When I checked the properties (by right-clicking the drive), it showed that the CD was completely full, meaning that the CD had been "burned" as having a program but contained "0 bytes." A tech guru also tried it, with the same result; then he put it in a laptop's DVD drive, opened it and copied the program to a flash drive, then installed that on my computer.

So, even though Amazon's info listed the program as being a CD, and even though the printed box that the program came in also listed the program as being a CD, it was actually a DVD and had been "burned" as a DVD. Those people who have a DVD drive on their computer might not ever notice the difference, but for those of us who have only a CD drive, it is a critical difference. The fault here is not with Amazon; instead the fault is with whoever actually "burned" the CD's for H&R Block.

As for the program that the guru got installed on my computer, it worked great; I e-filed my tax return yesterday with no apparent problems!

Because I've used TaxCut for over ten years, H&R Block's "At Home" came in the mail automatically. Popped the disc into the drive and started the install. A nice blue window popped up, but never populated with buttons, widgets, choices, text, or anything. Nada. Doesn't inspire much confidence in the product. The product will simply not install. It appears other reviewers are having difficulty with this product as well.

Okay, then let's check out TurboTax. Reviews for that product are not much better.

Only other choice appears to be OnePriceTaxes, but all five of their reviews smell fishy. They are all five star, brief, lots of exclamation marks and sound like marketing pitches. Each of the five reviewers have not reviewed a single other product on Amazon.

Looks like I'll have to wait a couple of months to see who gets their lousy software working first before I buy.

Today I spent 53 minutes on the phone with their support agents. Long story short, they don't know the H&R Block at Home product. This is after 3 attempts to resolve the same problem via their online chat to no avail. This product was totally unprepared for release, from the support web site that didn't even list this years tax software, to the software itself which can't download updates unless you run the software as administrator, to the "upper tier" support agents who have no concept of the financial information that one is trying to import or the products they supposedly interface (Quicken). I had to direct them to a software screen to prove that yes, you were supposed to be able to import from various versions of Quicken because they insisted I could only use Quicken 2008 for 2009 taxes. Mine is 2007 and clearly listed as an option on their "Smart Import" screen. The online network is also clearly inadequate as I was disconnected multiple times during the chat sessions and their staff is clearly unconcerned as no one ever contacted me to re-establish communication although a phone number is mandatory information in order to access this feature.

Have used Tax Cut in prior years and found it vey simple to use and accurate. The e-file worked with ease. I also liked the no state income tax feature of this edition since Tennesse state income tax is so simple a program is not needed.

As mentioned by other reviewers it is buggy, but if you do as the geek Mac user stated, and install it from within your admin account(I ended up installing, updating, and using it from within the admin account to be sure it worked) it may work. If I had to do it again though I would have went with something else, as I not being a geek lost some priceless (to me) stuff while trying to get it to work (I took too drastic of measures after running into problems). I'll definitely heed any credible sounding warnings next year, and either wait until updates clear up any problems or go with another brand.
ez

I bought the CD version Deluxe Federal only- no state. and it loaded fine with no issues on my Windows XP PC. I have used this product in the past and never had an issue with it. The one area where it falls flat (previously and now)is the section on Capital Gains. It was a very generic "one size fits all" section, with no special interview questions to determine the best inputs for Mutual funds, stocks, real estate, ect. Unless you are very familiar with doing taxes (luckily I was), it was very confusing to figure out how to input Short term and long term info from your 1099B brokerage sheet (you need to use the VAR-S and VAR-L in the "when acquired" line). I really wish they would fix this, but maybe they secretly wish you get so confused that you give up and have to go make an appointment with an HR Block office, where they can reach into you pocket and grab $300+ vs the $20 for this program.. I am curious if either the premium version or Turbo tax whould make this easier.....
Other than that, it performed rather well.

If you have more than 250 capital gain transactions, you can't e-file and apparently it is a HRblock limitation. I have to print more than 188 pages of data and mail it via USPS or FedEx.

Also, this software version doesn't allow you to impot more than I think 500 entries of stock sale data from a .txf file. Some transactions always get cut off. Once you enter a large number of transactions, it literally freezes from screen to screen and gets really really slow.

I am going to give TurboTax desktop version a try.