How to Solve Tricky Setup Problems
New Quicken 2013 users may encounter a handful of annoying setup problems. If you are one of the lucky ones and have encountered a problem during setup, here are some solutions to try.
Did somebody say Macintosh?
You can use the existing old Quicken files if you’re working with a new version of Quicken. In fact, if the Quicken installation program can find a version of old Quicken files on your computer, it gives you the option of just skipping all the Quicken setup stuff. In this case, you just begin using your existing files.
If you’ve been using Quicken for Macintosh, however, you have to export your data from the Macintosh before you can read it in the Windows version. There are about a million things more fun to do than exporting Quicken data from a Mac to Windows.
The mysterious case of the missing Quicken data files
If Quicken doesn’t find the old files, you need to open the specific files. But if you have this problem, you should be able to solve it yourself. What has happened, if you find yourself in this boat, is that you’ve moved or messed around with the Quicken files with some other program, such as Windows.
If you did that, presumably you had a reason. And more to the point, you should know where you put the files.
Migrating from Microsoft Money
Suppose that you’re moving from Microsoft Money to Quicken. The question of the hour is this: Can you reuse your old or existing Money files in Quicken? The answer is, “Yes, sort of.”
First of all, the Quicken File menu includes an Import command that lets you import files from Microsoft Money 2007 or 2008. So far, so good.
Further, if you’ve got an older version of Microsoft Money you want to convert data from, you can follow instructions provided at the Intuit website for migrating the data. To get to the actual page of instructions for how you do this, use Bing or Google and enter Intuit.com Importing Your Microsoft Money File into Quicken as your search term.
The instructions, just so you know, require you to download a free trial version of the Microsoft Money 2008 software so you can upgrade your really old Microsoft Money data file to the nearly as old Money 2008 data file format and then direct you to import that data file into Quicken.
The bottom line? Theoretically, you can move old Microsoft Money data files to Quicken.
Practically, however, moving financial information from Quicken to Money or vice versa doesn’t seem to work all that well. Transactions seem to get lost. Account balances get messed up. People ruin their lives. Well, maybe that last comment is a slight exaggeration.
But, no kidding: Migrating is problematic. If you do want to move from one program to another, make sure that you have a really good reason for doing so and that you allow yourself enough time to track down and correct any errors.
