Print - Microsoft Preps Money 2006

On July 5, Microsoft will ship Microsoft Money 2006 to consumers. Microsoft Money 2006 provides new online banking tools and an all-in-one solution for consumers seeking to manage their finances.

"Money 2006 was designed to build on the rising trend of online banking by offering all of the consumer's financial information in one easy-to-use location," says Anne Quaranta, the senior product manager for Microsoft Money. "With the tools and information Money 2006 provides, consumers now have a complete view of where their money is and has been, and understand where it is going."

Money 2006 includes an enhanced spending tracker for managing expenses, the ability to pay bills from multiple accounts, and greatly improved investment tracking features. As with Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006, consumers can preorder Money 2006 starting today at Amazon.com.

Money 2006 Standard Edition will retail for $29.95, while Money 2006 Deluxe Edition will cost $59.95. A Small Business Edition will cost $89.95. Each of these products will come with various rebate amounts, however.

Hope MS doesn't let the date slip like shoehorn. Money 2006 coming out in 2008 would not be good.

after the disaster that was ms money 2005, you can bet i will wait till the reviews... THE REAL USER reviews (not the stamp of approval cnet kind) come out. last year the program promised day 1 compatibility with HUNDREDS of more banks and brokerages then they EVER DELIVERED in the entire year after it was released. further bugs caused data corrpution, errors etc. and were never properly patched. while quicken has tremendous flaws of its own, microsoft continues to drop the ball in a huge, huge way with the money product when they would have a chance to attack quicken if only they devoted the resources to make a program that wasn't vaporware on half the features, and crippleware on the ones that do show up. buyer beware.

quite honestly, i had money 4.0 or something like 8 years ago and it did the job of tracking my finances just fine. wish i saved the installation disks.

Yawn? What happened to first post? Oh, this is not slashdot. If your that tired it must have been written by Thurrott.

I just bought Money 2005...What crap, if they are going to release annually, make it a subscription!

They have been doing annual releases for 5 years if not more and it always ships around the same time. Maybe you should pay more attention

Money 2005 is crap. Even the Microsoft support people said that you can expect data corruption with a .mny file over 10Mb. I am sticking with Money 2004 until it is very clear that 2006 is a solid release.

"All the Yawn posters: GO F*** YOURSELF! OR F*** YOUR SISTERS OR MOTHERS" Just as soon as I finish with yours.

Well,I am planning on making the switch to Money so I hope this is a solid release. Quicken 2005 has made such a mess of my finances that I am giving up on it. At one point when I was transferring investments between brokers, it gave me an extra $16 million, except that the transaction dates were centuries in the future. I can't wait that long. Then it forgot all my online payees. Each week, another problem.

So far, I've YET to find a viable money management for just a simple bank account. MVelopes has the right concept (Preset SUB-accounts where you can see what's LEFT in a spending catagory instead of the current after the fact "oops...you overspent" reports). In addition, my current Money data files are corrupted, and none of the salvage tools repair it. Not to mention it is a CPU hog. Over the past several years (yes, I re-evaluate every year hoping and praying for something good), the ONLY thing either Quicken or Money have added is banks, investment tracking (which my investment companies give me anyhow) and a new UI for the home page. Whoopty freakin' doo. How about some solid code? Maybe data files that don't corrupt at the drop of a hat? How about the ability to manage my checking account the way I want to? As for the "yawn" thread, grow up.

No need to worry about the release date slipping on Money 2006. It doesn't take long to move a few things around and add a token minor feature or two. Does Money EVER have any substantial new features from one version to another? I've never noticed, and it's what I've used for several years now.

Question for this Anne Quaranta at Microsoft: "So, Money 2006 is a "complete" package now? Is this an actual, no kidding admission that previous versions are not?" Same garbage, different year. Just another sell tactic. I'm not buying any more until I see some REAL improvements.

Money is out now. I'd like to see some other user posts on it. I have it, but can't use it. I can log in to the Microsoft Passport Network fine, but I can't connect to the Registration Server or the servers that let me add account information. When I try I am told I am not online (I've checked everything to the point of turning off my firewalls, it's beyond the scope of my system, I think). I've spent a couple of hours on phone with microsoft money techs, no help. If someone gets it and it's working, I'd really like to know. When they fix me and I actually get to use it I'll post again.

Money 2003 had serous flaws. The 2004 version has been excellent. I'd be happy to stay with this version, except that the automatic bank links expire in 2 years, so it seems I'll need to switch to Money 2006 in order to maintain those updates. Manual downloads should still work ok.