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.
![Quicken 2003 Deluxe [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VBBD7947L._SL160_.jpg)
