Quicken 2004 Premier Home & Business

Previous versions have been fixed with updates. However the 2004 version has not. This problem has been confirmed and documented in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 810905.

Quicken Tech support stated they would release a fix for bugs after receiving user reports. Apparently this product has been released with insufficent testing and debugging, especially since this bug has appeared in previous versions.


Don't buy until they fix the bugs   October 11, 2003
17 out of 17 found this review helpful

My purchase of Quicken 2004 PHB arrived yesterday. It installed and converted my Quicken 2003 PHB files without a problem (I have been using Quicken since 1992 without any problems, and have upgraded each year) and then proceeded to give me a memory write error and crashed. Two complete removal/install cycles later, it still crashes when I try to run the program.

Some searching on the web produced reports of a known bug when you try to display net worth graphs spanning more than one year, which I am doing on my "entry page". This apparently is keeping me from even running the program.

I am in the process of testing Intuit's 100% Satisfaction Guarantee and am returning thier product - this bug has been know for two months but no patch is available...

I have reinstalled the 2003 version (fortunately I made data backups, as did Quicken). Guess I'll wait and see if the 2005 version works...


Loaded with features, hogs RAM   September 9, 2003
R. Carlson (Menlo Park, CA United States)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

I have used Quicken for home finances for years, and recently "upgraded" from Quicken 2000 to Quicken 2004 Premier Home & Business.

This package is loaded with features that allow you to very quickly and completely get a grasp of your finances both numerically and visually. Adding accounts and transactions is a breeze. The system is very intuitive (at least for a user of earlier versions of Quicken)and visually appealing. The importing of the old data file went seamlessly and completely. (Always make a back-up of your database before trying the importation - it may safe you a whole lot of grief.)

The negative - you cannot run ANY other program at the same time. Forget multitasking. Period. Even with ONLY Quicken 2004 running, the system frequently gives messages of "Resources dangerously low" and "out of memory", etc. The system often freezes with these warnings and requires a reboot. Quicken seems to be out booting Windows! My system is not the problem - I am running on a Pentium IV 1.3 MHz Windows ME system with 512 MB RAM and 40GB of free hard disk space, far about the recommended requirements from Intuit.

The Intuit web site is NOT helpful when it comes to trying to problem solve the memory problems. There basic advice: keep rebooting and remove all other programs from your system. They even suggest going through the process of removing TSR programs before you start Quicken. Everytime! Not very user friendly recommendations. Really!

I certainly hope (and expect) that Intuit will come out with a patch that makes this a reliable program. If the memory problems were handled, this would be a 5 star program without question. With the memory problems, my CTL-ALT-DEL keys are getting worn-out! In the meantime, I am torn between putting up with the memory frustration for the added features, or bringing the back-up data file off the shelf and re-installing Quicken 2000 that is more limited but works first time, everytime.


so many bug this product becomes useless   October 10, 2003
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

The more I use this product the buggier it seems to get until it just got to the point where it has become absolutly useless to me.

Now that I have invested lots of time into developing it and getting everything set up for my new small business, I am trying to use it and it no longer seems to work. Sure I can still create an estimate, but if I try to print my estimate, the whole program freezes and quits. I was willing to deal with the buggyness of it freezing and quitting all the time, I would just start over - time consuming yes - but it seemed to have some really great features. Now it actually limits the functionallity of the program to useless.

There are no patches available even though Intuit has been aware of all problems. And no, I am not a helpless secretary that some other reviewer suggests the problem might be. I have been in the software industry for the last 10 years as a database developer / trouble shooter / technical support. This product just has to many bugs that intuit isn't supplying fixes for. They should have gotten better QA on this product to begin with before releasing such a buggy product.

Thanks for nothing Intuit - this product has been nothing but a timesink. I have to now completely start over with a new product.

Beware - the longer it appears to work for you the worse off you will be when you finally encounter this breaking point.


support   October 14, 2004
R. Parzoch
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

The support of this product is very poor. The first question from the company is about the customer's credit card number even if the product was just bought and it does not do what is described in the manual. I was trying to point out the problem with the program and the standard answer was: "Our product is flawless; the problem is with you". I am familiar with financial programs and accounting but after trying to use the program for two weeks I gave up and decided to return it.