Quicken Premier 2009

I had used Quicken until 2006 and it worked well then. Bought Premier 2009 and paid full price for it.

Installation appeared to be all right but the program kept crashing every time I used the password vault. Called quicken support multiple times and spent at least 10 hours, and finally it was I who figured out the solution. The password vault was crashing because the password for one of my credit cards was too long and it caused the program to crash. Now I cannot use the keyboard to move between transactions, whether using the tab or enter button. Spent another 5 hours with customer support and they found no solution.

There are other bugs as well. This program is not worth more than 10-20 dollars most, given the amount of heartache and pain it has caused me. I would return it but I have trashed the original packaging it came with.

Please do not waste your time or money on this useless buggy software.

I've been using Quicken for many years. I generally upgrade every two years to see what's new, so I went from Premier 2007 to 2009. I haven't seen any new feature that means anything to me, the UI is less appealing than the previous UI, and 2009 had an annoying bug that they just fixed in r3. In summary, I like Quicken, but if you already have it, stick with what you have.

I bought Quicken Premier 2009 for Windows because I wanted better features than I felt I was getting from the Mac version of Quicken that I was using (Quicken for Mac 2007). The migration of my Mac Quicken data to Windows Quicken was a bit arduous in terms of straightening out some data issues but after about 8 hours of work to make sure all the accounts looked the same as they had in the Mac version, I was set. Now I am learning about the different features in the Windows version. I bought a "Missing Manual" book to help with that. But so far I am basically impressed by the program and feeling a bit surprised to see all the negative reviews on this web page about it. Like many people, I have money in the stock market, both in retirement accounts and outside retirement accounts, and that is one reason I was drawn to this software--because of the multiple features it offers for tracking your investments. I have not been disappointed thus far and I am finding that it is very proficient at handling a variety of securities transactions (e.g., reinvested dividends, assigning purchases and sales to lots, tracking rate of return). Overall I would give it four out of five stars. It IS a complex program in the sense that there is a lot to learn about (though not really a lot to learn about if you only want to keep a check register and a cash account, or even just a check register). The complexity is perhaps the biggest negative I can muster about it but I am very comfortable with Quicken having used it for years so it does not really bother me and I just think it is an awesome program overall for keeping track of your finances and, really, improving your finances as a result.

Quicken 2009 is a very good improvement over what I was originally using for the past 3 years (I'm upgrading from version 2006).

1) Installation of Quicken 2009 went smooth, but after initially running the program, I kept getting Runtime errors (which automatically terminated the program). I emailed for assistance, was given a downloadable Quicken removal tool because Quicken support said I probably had remnants of prior Quicken programs. After running the removal tool, the program ran better, but I still received a few Run time errors, as well as the program running slow.

Quicken 2009 uses a lot of system resources, and the slowness might have been from low system resources. I tried tweaking my Display Properties (Settings & Appearance) by reducing my color quality to Medium (16 bit), unchecking the "shadow under menus", unchecking the "show windows contents while dragging", etc. It's possible that you don't have to modify all these items, but I've found my entire system (including) Quicken, runs a lot faster.

1a) After using Quicken 2009 for another 30 minutes, the program began working fine (no errors). ** Note: you may have a lot of system memory, but it's the system resources that may cause Quicken to slow down. ** Hopefully the Display Properties modifications will help increase your available system "resources".


2) Quicken 2009, as a program (when any minor issues have been resolved), is a pleasure to use.

3) In regards to downloading transactions, I've only downloaded (updated) my mutual fund and stock quotes (based upon the stock symbols I set up). I haven't downloaded any bank transactions, because I'd rather enter them manually.

4) As of this writing, the Release 2 patch (for quicken 2009) is available.

5) A personal tid bit, I never liked the "cash register" sound when "recording" the transactions, so I changed it via: CONTROL PANEL / SOUNDS, SPEECH, AND AUDIO DEVICES / CHANGE THE SOUND SCHEME / SOUNDS (Quicken) /RECORD (Browse C:\Windows\Media).....

In closing, without the minor problems, Quicken Premier 9 is great; you actually enjoy entering and keeping track of your financial data, as well as generating selected reports.

I have been astonished by some of the "reviews" I have been reading...
I have been using Quicken since the very first DOS version in the 80s and I have been a beta tester for about 5-7 years. Beta testing IS all about finding bugs so that they can be addressed and FIXED prior to releasing the software.
The latest version is the most STABLE, the most customizable and most graphical so far. Quicken makes it very easy to set it up the way YOU like to work and to SEE exactly what you spent, when you spent it, and who you spent it with.
I have gone from using the beta software to using the first release of the software many times WITHOUT a problem.
I pay bills through Quicken, download banking, brokerage, credit card, and stock transactions in Quicken and I have NEVER had a problem.
I have not had a problem upgrading a file, or running a report, and...since day 1, I have NEVER lost a file in Quicken.
I use reviews a lot when I am doing research and deciding to purchase something so I hope this review helped you a little...I recommend Quicken Premier 2009!