Rating: 
Summary: Money 2002 - Great Leap Backwards
Review: I'm having exactly the same problem others are reporting. Money 2002 Deluxe Home and Business is easily confused by downloaded transactions. By consolidating the Accept/Change for downloaded transactions in the live check register, the designers of this product have created a basically fatal flaw in the software which now has left me showing "1 Transaction to Review" but its not in the register (and I can no longer see it on the downloaded statement as you could with earlier versions of Money to find it). Apparently because of this flaw, I can no longer download current statements from the bank! I've used Money for 4 years now with different versions, the best was Money 2000; this is by far the worst. Both my wife and I who have been Money fans up to this point, are very unhappy with this release of Microsoft Money. DON'T BUY OR UPGRADE TO THIS RELEASE OF MICROSOFT MONEY!!! We're basically at the point of either wiiping Money 2002 off the computer to go back to the 2000 version or replacing it with QuickBooks.
Rating:
Summary: Don't force me, and hey, I paid for this!
Review: Just some facts:
1. If I don't want to register the software, please leave me alone.
2. I don't want to become passport member and don't want that server to have my information.
3. I do NOT want to see any ADs in my "paid" software!
Rating: 
Summary: Neat
Review: For those of you considering buying Money 2002, I'd suggest going to the Microsoft website and downloading the trial version first (which *is* the Deluxe version). It has a two month lifespan, which is perfectly adequate for figuring out whether you will like the product or not. I've spent the last two days mucking around with it and I really like what I see. I like the 'dashboard' functionality where you set up all your account details, portfolios etc, and then Money will tell you which stocks are doing well, doing badly etc. I am very wary of linking bank accounts directly into the internet, so in the meantime I'm just downloading stock information. It is a bit limited on the international stocks side, and the US product is (surprise surprise) catered for US tax law and US investments (eg: 401K). But I would expect that this would all come in handy for someone actually from the US. The best functionality in this product is definitely the dashboard, cash flow and budgeting facilities. Basically every time I log into Money, it updates itself with the latest Money updates (ie: patches etc) and stock values, and tells me at a glance how everything is going. I'd give it five stars, but there are minor gaps in the functionality - like you can't import historical share data if the share isn't on the MSN listings. But this is very minor. It is definitely designed for you to set up all your accounts, all your shares and bonds, set up all the links into the internet to get current prices/values/balances, and then periodically monitor and update as you require. I'm not planning on using all the functionality, but what I have seen is very neat indeed. Up until now, I have managed such information in Word or Excel. I will purchase this product before departing the US as I believe it will save me time in the long run.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect for Small Business
Review: Needing to upgrade to a Windows based accounting software for our small business, I purchased Peachtree...I HATED IT...their support was awful, even after purchasing extra support...they always told me my simple questions were not covered. So...in desperation, and not wanting to spend a lot of money, I tried MS Money Deluxe and Business 2002. Most of it was easy to figure out, but the big disadvantage was that there's NO help in the manual for the Business type of entries...I was ready to scream...then, I decided to call Microsoft support. They answered very quickly and took lots of time with me on the phone. They didn't make me feel stupid and told me exactly how to do my simple everyday, invoicing, billing etc. with their program. Now I LOVE IT...it shows me the info on the first page...it can do most anything I want to do, and if I have a question, I call Microsoft support and they're clear, concise and great to talk to.
As long as you're not shy about calling for support...I highly recommend this product. If you won't pick up the phone and ask a question...buy something else.
Rating:
Summary: bad choice to upgrade
Review: I used Money 2000. When I tried to convert the old money file (about 1 mb), the computer (Pentium III 800 MHz with Win 98 and 128M memory) is still running after 30 minutes. It wouldn't let me to do anything including hitting the Alt+Ctl+Del keys. Lucky I did use the money 2000 to create a smaller file with only last year transactions (it is about 300k). Money 2002 successfully convert the file in 1 minute.There isn't much improvements or new functions from the previous versions other than the screen.
It gives the audio instructions which helps to slow down the computer.
The backgroud banking sounds good. But how much do you trust microsoft on the security?
It prompts me to signup with the passport. I always refuse it. I have a hotmail account and the passport. My account is not listed on the directory. I never use this account to make any online purchase. I still have 10 to 20 spam email per day. I don't know what will happen if I connect the money to the passport. There are a lot of way to spend [your money]. It was a bad choice to buy money 2002.
Rating:
Summary: Money Works For Me!!!
Review: I upgraded from Money 99. All is well. I love the new Home Page facelift. Real helpful. However, I'm still bummed that you can't change a Loan Type to a Checking Account after making it. The Change Type button doesn't apply to Loan Types. The reports are real nifty too. I'm using Windows 2000 on a Dell Workstation and all is well.
Rating: 
Summary: Problem closing passport when quit
Review: The other review pretty much sums up the functionalities of this software. I do want to raise some problem that I encountered. If you choose to login use passport with your Money software, and when you are done, you quit, assuming that it will log you off. It's not the case for me, even after I shut down the program, my passport session is not over.... I have to kill the cookie manually or go to hotmail and logoff manually. It is very confusing.
Rating:
Summary: Read This First Before Buy Money 2002!!!
Review: Are you looking for a personal finance software?
Read this first before you buy it! I have been using MS Money for several years, and here's what I think about the recent Money 2002 Deluxe. There's several flaws in this products and some people who have been using previous Money are complaining about it. Their argument is that it cause conflict with their hardware and software in their system. I have read many reviews about this product and some people are not happy with MS Money at all; "MS Money deleted my Norton Anti-virus software", "My AMD 500mhz is running very slow after I installed Money 2002", "I had to wiped-out my hard drive, because money cause many problems with my system", "Money cause conflict with my Norton firewall", Etc. . . Also, there are many people who had a unpleasant experiences with Money 2002 Deluxe; "Passport sucks, I have a problems background downloading my financial statement", "Why do I have to sign-up for passport where MS is tracking your every move when you are on the net", "The Budget Planner NEVER get it right, and there's no way to correct it", "Warning, Money 2002 Deluxe can only download per transation vs previous version for batch download", "There are too many AD that are popping-out on MS Money 2002 Deluxe", "It's pain in the butt to see the window popping out everytime you turn on money asking you to sign-up for a passport account", "The download bank statement are INCORRECT!", "I spent many hours just to set-up Money 2002 Deluxe, only to delete it and start all over again, too many flaws!!!", Etc. . . Here's my advice; if you are looking for a good personal finance software today, there's none! You need to wait for something better, do it yourself, or hire a bookkeeper. If none of the above, then go with MS Money or Quicken.
It's your pick!
Rating:
Summary: Two complaints but a great product (better than Quicken)!!!!
Review: I am a former Quicken user, but I was dissappointed in some of the functionality of Quicken as far as Paychecks, Home Inventory and 401K were concerned. I switched to Money, and I love it! It is like having a Finance Expert in your computer (much more so than Quicken). I do have two minor complaints. The first complaint is that the downloaded transactions don't match as well as Quicken's did. Be careful to double check your entered transaction versus the downloaded one before accepting it. The second complaint is that when I do an electronic transfer, it tries to connect to the ISP right away. When I cancel the attempt to connect, I figured it would just queue the request for later. That didn't happen, it just treated it like a non-electronic transfer, therefore the money never transferred accounts at the bank.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful but flawed
Review: I converted to MS Money after 5 years with Quicken. I love the interface--it seems like no matter what you want to do, a button for it is right where you's expect it to be, and the overall workflow is much easier than Quicken. But I've had lots of problems with online access, specifically trying to sync with moneycentral, which ultimately led to my portfolio being corrupted. After much interaction with MS tech support, they have finally recommended that I re-install Win 98, and I may have lost the last four months worth of data. I recommend that any potential buyer check out the microsoft.public.money newsgroup before purchasing. There are lots of problems out there, you need to decide if this risk outweighs a potentially superior product.
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