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177 of 186 found the following review helpful:
(Almost) nothing new under the sun Jul 29, 2006
By tangofan
Microsoft has recently launched the 2007 version of their Money product. Money 2007 (M2007) Deluxe has been available as a trial version on Microsoft's website even a week before the official version was available in Retail Stores. I strongly advise everyone considering a purchase or an upgrade to take advantage of this Trial version, before buying the product. It is good for 90 days and has few limitations.
I have been using Money 2006 (M2006) Premium which is essentially the same as M2006 Deluxe, execept for some special offers. I installed M2007 and told it, NOT to remove my M2006 installation. Since M2007 upgrades the data file to a new format that is incompatible with earlier versions of money, I made a copy of my data file to be used with M2007, so I could still access my data through both versions. When I started M2007 for the first time and selected the newly made copy of my data file, M2007 converted this file to its new format without any problems and saved a copy in M2006 backup file format.
Overall M2006 and M2007 are extremly similar. Looking at the kind of things I use Money for, there is NO difference whatsoever. They both have the same minor shortcomings/bugs and their behavior is indistinguishable from one another. I do not download online statements, so I cannot say, if that area has been improved. Also M2007 has a new kind of "Spending and Savings budget" feature, which is the only noticable change compared to M2006.
All things considered, M2007 does not add much (if any) value over M2006, so I will only give it 3 stars. If you haven't upgraded in a while, consider M2007, since it seems at least to be stable (which couldn't be said, i.e. for M2005). If you haven't used Money before, then M2007 seems like a good version to start. But don't forget to try before you buy! Go to Microsoft's website and search for the Money Trial version.
39 of 41 found the following review helpful:
 Not new, but a great program Aug 30, 2006
By Honest Reviewer
As many of the other reviewers have mentioned, there are not a ton of new features in Money 2007. However, as a user of Money 2002 and Quicken 2006, there are several upgrades over M02, and I am very pleased with M07. Having used M02 for about 3-4 years, I decided to upgrade so that I could take advantage of the online banking/statements features offered for the newer programs. With everyone and everything referring to Quicken while speaking of financial software (much the way people refer to a "Kleenex" for tissue), I figured that I would give it a shot with Quicken 2006. Having spent the last 8 months or so using Q06, it had some good things about it, and some annoying things (the budget isn't very workable, no reallocation between budget items so if you go over in one, you can't "borrow" from another item to balance your budget. The investment updates aren't as complete as with M07, either. These are just a few.) Deciding that I would see what was available on the Money front, I discovered the M07 Trial version on Microsofts website. After loading it onto my system and painlessly converting my Quicken file over (which was FAR simpler than getting my M02 file converted to Q06), I began to fine tune the program. Needlessly to say, having spent 8 months using Q06, I felt like I was "home" again with M07. It still has some quirks in the program (still can't figure out how to use the savings goal feature in the budget,the debt reduction planner isn't as controllable as I'd like, the cash flow forcast has more assumptions than I would, but these level off over time, etc.), but these features work fine for my money management. Rest assured, when my trial period is over, I WILL be purchasing the full program.
21 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 Performance is harassment and functionality is faulty Jun 02, 2007
By .
"Ujjval"
I am a seasoned user of "Microsoft Money" since 2001 and used Money-2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007 versions. On the subject of convenience and integration of multiple financial activities, Money (and for that matter even Quicken) does a fantastic job.
However, with 4-5 years of usage of 'Money', my money file has grown to nearly 19MB. Due to the large file size, I am getting pathetic performance which is quite annoying. I have a laptop with 2.4GHz dual core CPU and 1GB RAM, however very basic activity such as looking at monthly report, budget report etc. takes 2-3 minutes to display on the screen ! Even if I retry, it once again hangs for 2-4 minutes. I will be lucky if I could get 'any' operation finished faster then 5 seconds/transaction. The problem isn't with specific version but the way Money is designed to store its information. There were some discussion on improving performance by using money data on Database but Microsoft chose not to invest money on any such design change.
Another annoying thing I observed with Microsoft Money is with every newer release one will get fancier but more BUGGY software. So far I found '2004' release best in the bunch but once you upgrade the version and make new entries it is not feasible to go back to earlier version.
Let me give you an example that will explain the problem. Most common activity a user will have is it to download data from financial institutes. Money will connect to these institutes and get the data. It will turn back in 2-3 minutes with newer data and shows status 'done'. On the "Account List" you will see, for example, 5 new transaction and when you inside this account, there is no new transaction listed ! Reason is, though you got 'done' status data hasn't finished downloading. After 2-3 minutes you will get the data in the account. When you see the transactions, you won't be able to 'accept' them as it is waiting on 'something'! In short, after getting data downloaded from the institute, you won't be able to 'accept' them for nearly 3-4 minutes. I am surprised to find that Microsoft is selling software w/o testing such basic functionality !
NOTE:I noticed above mentioned bug only in 2007 release.
I wish to have a better software for my need w/o losing existing data but Microsoft hasn't offered better (not just newer) version yet. Quicken seems to have similar issues. Quicken doesn't allow any migration facility to use existing Money files under their software. Once again, I can just wish that Microsoft Money 2008 comes with higher performance and basic testing.
If you are a first time user, prefer to compare both Money and Quicken for yourself before locking your data with one of the them. With 'Money', once your file grows larger, performance deteriorate significantly.
One last point-- even with above limitations, I am better off using this software then not having it at all. Here I jotted down major limitations of Money; Microsoft does good job of marketing good points so I won't spare much time on that.
21 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 Utter disappointment! Apr 11, 2007
By Matthew Coble
I have been a Microsoft Money user for many, many years. (Going back to Money '98? I forget.) I reluctantly upgraded to Money 2007 Premium earlier this year from Money 2004 when I read somewhere that Money 2004 was no longer going to be supported. (I also read that Money 2005, Money 2006, and Money 2007 had issues. Hence my reluctance to upgrade.)
For years, I have sync'ed Money with my online accounts on nearly a daily basis. I'm that kind of focused on keeping my eye on my money, and Money has historically served me very well in this habit. Money 2007 does not.
Since installing it, I have:
1) Battled with my prior bank for nearly two months to get them to figure out by Money 2007 does not synchronize with their systems.
2) Installed and reinstalled Money 2007 on several different workstations to test the synchronization issue with my years-old Money file and new, empty Money files. Always fails.
3) Now I have *switched banks* thinking the syncing issue was my bank's fault. It wasn't. It's Microsoft Money's fault.
Syncing fails *every* time with a helpful OBRES 22063 error. Oh, yea, that
one! We all know just what that is.
I have read every Microsoft knowledge base article I can find. I have perused public.microsoft.money and other usenet groups. I have Googled. I have read blogs. The only thing I find is that lots of people have this problem with lots of different financial institutions, and Microsoft is doing nothing about it
In Money 2004, this worked flawlessly nearly every time. Why did it
break?!?!!
So if you're looking to have Money synchronize with your accounts online, look elsewhere. But if you're all about putting everything in manually, this product will serve you just fine.
Buy a copy of Quicken instead!
17 of 17 found the following review helpful:
No major changes Nov 12, 2006
By Thomas C. Milner
"tmilner"
I had Money 2005 and bought this update. I was disappointed to find that there were no significant changes either in the interface or features (at least the ones I use). This may really be saying that this genre of software has fully matured and has no major direction to go in improving from previous versions, kind of like MS Office applications.
If you have a previous version of Money (2005 or 06), I would suggest not wasting your money and staying with what you have. Otherwise, I highly recommend Money for new users. It is very useful and provides the necessary tools to have an organized financial system and plan.
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