Customer Reviews

Quicken 2003 Deluxe [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(57)

 

 

I've faithfully upgraded my Quicken software every year. I've got to say that this year's 2003 release is NOT one of the better upgrades. Quicken has dummed-down the product so much that it's lost a lot of its great layout flexibility. Worse - if you don't like strong-arm advertising tactics you may want to look elsewhere.

Quicken 2003 is a lot easier to use, but it comes at a cost. Tasks/activities now open up in single pop-up windows (the browser type single window/navigation is gone). If you want to keep the pop-up task/activity around while you do something else, you have to first minimize it to get it out of the way (the task/activity is then stored at the bottom of the Quicken screen as a link). This is probably easier for your average user but makes more steps and is more cumbersome to experienced Quicken users. My least favorite change: You can't have Quicken "save" your current/favorite layout and open/launch Quicken to that same layout every time you start Quicken - instead, Quicken always goes back to the default layout on startup. Grrrr.

Probably most disappointing is the way Quicken forces their services down your throat. On-screen advertisements are sure to annoy IMMEDIATELY (They can't be removed from the default home page, but you can make your own custom home page sans advertisement if you spend some time reading the manual). The toolbar is by default cluttered/littered with links to "Quicken Brokerage", "Quicken On the Web" and "Quicken Services". All are removable but it's annoying to even have to shut them off in the first place.

If you want to use Quicken's on-line bill payment (via your own bank), get ready to be forcibly run through Quicken's registration program which basically makes you enroll in Quicken's own on-line services. The registration will hound you if you don't register, and once you do register Quicken insists that you upload your private bank account information (transactions et al) to their web server so you can "manage your accounts on-line" via the web (NO THANKS! I HAVE ENOUGH TROUBLE PROTECTING MY PRIVATE INFORMATION ON-LINE). Trying to figure out how to get through registration without uploading your checking and saving account transaction/history to Quicken's web site is not obvious (but it can be done).

You can work around Quicken's strong arm registration tactics and get rid of most of the in-your-face advertising and up-selling, but it will take up a lot of your time and guarantees to annoy even the most patient.

At the end of the day, with Quicken 2003, I can still do everything I could with Quicken 2002. Is it worth upgrading? I have not noticed anything (at all) that is new and useful.

New users will find Quicken 2003 to be VERY easy to use. Old users will be a little frustrated by the loss of flexibility caused by this tradeoff. Everyone will be unhappy with Quicken's in-your face approach to getting you to use more of their "services". If you can be patient - it's still probably the best personal financial software available.

NOT RECOMMENDED!

I am a software professional and have been using Quicken since the first release. Years ago, I could honetly say that I was thrilled with Quicken, but I can no longer recommend the product after receiving the 2003 release. The software is buggy, the user interface is cumbersome, and the software constantly bugs the user with advertisements and sales piches for Intuit's online services.

It appears to me that the company is using its flagship product primarily as an advertising tool for more lucrative online service offerings. Intuit offers no way for the end user to disable the constant nagging and in-your-face advertising "features" of Quicken 2003.

The registration process is one of the most annoying things about the software. Intuit insists that the user register as a "member" of their online service, even if the user has zero interest in any of their online offerings. To add insult to injury, the registration process is flawed. Intuit offers no way for a previously registered user to detect prior registration settings when reinstalling the software. I wasted hours trying to get software that I paid for to work.

I recommend that you save your money and do some homework. I am looking for another financial application. I would rather go through the pain of converting my accounts and online banking to another vendor before I would ever consider another full-price Quicken "upgrade".

NOT RECOMMENDED!

Intuit did redesgn the interface. Very nice looking and a more comtemporary look which is a nice change from the boring looks of previous versions. They get high marks for that!

Going beyond the GUI, get ready to spend some time learning the new layout! The tabs along the side of the screen now include balances, which is a great idea. Remeber how you could drag and drop the tabs to a new location? Forget it here! You now need to visit 2 screens to do the same thing. Remember adding reports and other often-used tabs? Forget it - functionality has been removed! You now have to get to a report via various menus or secondary screens; the quickest I have found is through 2 menus and no way to add a shortcut someplace else. Remember having a nice home page with nice small neat boxes with account balances, stock balance, etc. that fit on one screen without scrolling and being able to customize it? All boxes are now full-width on the screen so that you need to scroll through most every screen to find what you are looking for. The list continues . . .

I've always been pretty impressed with Quicken and have been a devoted user for many years but Intuit blew it with this redesign. It seems like they've sacrificed user convenience by trying to stuff in more information and functionality - and not retaining some way for the user to customize and re-arrange things for the user's needs.

I keep current on all my software but this is an exception; I'm going back to an old version and plan to try to return my software to Intuit. If your using a pre-2003 version and it's doing what you want it to do, save you money. Chances are you won't be impressed with the upgrade.

I cannot express enough how absolutely terrible this program is.

First, let me say that I have been an avid Quicken user since 1994. At that time, I was balancing my checkbook by hand and Quicken was a lifesaver. At first I used it to print out checks and balance my checkbook electronically. But, as technology quickly grew, I began to use Quicken to pay bills electronically, track my investments online, categorize my expenses, and track my net worth. Upgrades were offered at a discount to existing users, and they incorporated straightforward, necessary changes which enhanced the program's usefulness. Life was good.

Then, somewhere around 2000, Quicken started to fall apart. In an obvious attempt to make more money, they stopped offering discounted upgrades to existing users. In addition, program changes were, by-and-large, becoming unecessary. So, in order to justify selling a new program each year, they kept needlessly overhauling the interface from one version to the next. So each time you upgraded, you had to re-learn everything. And if you stuck with your current version, as I tried to do, you could not fully utilize the online features because they were no longer supported. So you were forced to upgrade - at full price - to whatever Intuit wanted to throw your way.

I am happy to annouce that, with Quicken 2003 Deluxe, I have just purchased my last and final upgrade. I am sad, however, to announce that Intuit has finally gone over the edge. First of all, the interface is ridiculous. It's so confusing that you simply cannot perform even the simplest tasks without going through a myriad of confusing pop-up screens and menus. Nothing is Intuitive (ironically) and almost nothing comes without errors, advertisements, or problems. For example, I have several fairly straightforward securities through a 401K account. But for some reason, the price per share for some of the securities kept coming up as zero - and I was unable to update the prices, either manually or online. This was an obvious bug in the program that cost me many hours of frustration with no resolution. Again, let me express that I am an advanced user and I am very certain that this is a programming bug. Of course, the only free technical support that Intuit now offers is a weak online database which resolved none of my problems. If you want to talk to a live person, you have to pay for both the call and the service. Incredible.

But the problems don't end there. I'll spare you the long story of how I wasn't able to register the program because of a bug in the included browser - so I couldn't use any of the online features without getting annoying pop-up reminders to register the program - even though the program wouldn't allow me to register it! I won't tell you about how the program kept re-booting my system because of browser conflicts with Internet Explorer. And I certainly won't relay the long and tiring story about how my unlock code - which I had legitimately paid for - failed to work upon re-installing the program from factory purchased discs. Their solution to this problem was to call an 800 number, which, when called, gives you a message that the number is no longer supported. Incredible.

So, after all of that, I went and bought Microsoft Money 2003 - regardless of what I had just spent on Quicken. I'm happy to report that the installation was easy, the set-up was flawless, and there is not a bug to be found. In addition, there are no advertisements, there is plenty of support, and the interface is absoutely intuitive. I was up and running in less than 2 hours with all of the capabilities of Quicken and then some.

In summary, Quicken has completely lost the plot. They began in 1994 by making my life easier, and ended up in 2003 making it considerably more difficult. If they keep up like this, they do not deserve to remain in business. So, Quicken users, take my advice, don't be afraid, and switch to Microsoft Money today. You'll be very glad you did.

Opt for any Quicken edition (even the expensive Premier) and get inundated with ads. Quicken will clutter your screen with attempts to get you to sign up for their brokerage service, their credit card, their mortgage company partners, and the program will repeatedly try to get you to send your personal financial information to their website (supposedly for more features), where your can be inundated with more "special offers".

If you register this product, consider very carefully whether to give them your email address.

I've used Quicken since the DOS days. I've been on an annual upgrade cycle because I like the ease of downloading updated stock prices. I cursed Intuit when they switched to the browser-like format, but stuck with the product anyway.
Like others, I'd read the reviews of Quicken 2003 and was leary about the advertising. I speculated that the people who wrote those reviews just never found the 'turn off the ads' option like Quicken 2002 had. It turns out the option isn't there. What is there are annoying ads everywhere. I returned the software directly to Intuit and got my money back (except for the money I spent on shipping!).
Don't waste your time or money. Stick with the version of Quicken you already have.

I've been a loyal user of Quicken for more years and upgrades than I can remember--but the new UI with forced, incessant advertising has me seriously considering cleaning this crap off my computer and reverting to 2K.

I PAID FOR THE SOFTWARE. I DON'T WANT TO SEE ADS SQUEEZED INTO EVERY MARGIN ON MY () SCREEN.

I'm not sure if I would be considered a power user of quicken or not. I have over 20 accounts in it, a 401(k) account, a couple of mortgages, etc. I have used Quicken since MYM passed away. The first versions of Quicken were "Okay". Being a tenacious optimist, I keep updating the program in the hopes previous bugs would be fixed. THEY ARE NEVER FIXED! Quicken 2003 Deluxe is just as full of bugs as ever. Mortgages aren't handled correctly. Data from previous versions disappears forever. Alerts aren't calculated correctly. You can "submit" bug reports and suggestions, but I suspect they're dumped somewhere in the ether.

One reason I tried this update was that I was told you could "chat" with tech support via the internet without paying the support fee. After spending over an hour with a tech, I was again told I had found yet another "product defect".

(...)

I always keep software current and am usually happy with each new version of Quicken but not with 2003. While I am pretty happy with the new interface and have not noticed the ads that seem to annoy other reviewers, I am very concerned about critical bugs in the program. Two examples:

1) In the check-writing window, you can't check the on-line payment box. The only way I have discovered to create an on-line payment to a new payee is to create a register entry with "send" as the check number. The check-writing window does work with existing on-line payees - it will automatically check the box when you enter the payee name.

2) In the check-writing window, if you highlight and control-d to delete a check you are asked to verify your intent. If you tell the program to delete the check is not deleted. If you were previously working in the underlying check register and a transaction is highlighted that transaction is deleted instead. There is no way to recover the lost transaction.

Intuit has not fixed either bug in 2 updates to the program. Intuit tech support is VERY poor and I am unwilling to spend $$ to be given answers like, "Quicken does not support the current version of the Microsoft mouse driver. Try to find an old version and install it."

I've been a loyal user of Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax for many (15+) years but I would try Money if I didn't have so much data loaded in Quicken.

If they ever fix these bugs I might change my review.

I miss my Managing Your Money. I went to Quicken several versions ago when MYM was no longer produced and supported. With every update I hope the program will get better and it's many bugs fixed. But the program continues to have bugs where they shouldn't have any. In other words, the programmers are sloppy and high schoolish. Some negative values don't show up in red. Credit card maximums and minimums don't calculate properly (in a money management program?). You have to pay for live support - even if the problem is theirs. My fingers are crossed that some one else will come up with a money management program so Quicken will wake up and do the job right. Try MS Money instead.