Rating: 
Summary: Forget it - go with TaxCut
Review: I've used Turbo Tax for years. Last year was a little weak, but this year's addition of Product Activation cinched it for me. I'm not a hacker or a pirate, but Product Activation had previously turned my Office XP upgrade from a 30-minute exercise to an all-day nightmare. Product Activation is bad news for legitimate consumers and less than an annoyance to hackers, who have already cracked it.I switched to Tax Cut. It works beautifully, costs less, and imported my prior year's TurboTax data flawlessly. I recommend other buyers do the same.
Rating:
Summary: Software Failed no support
Review: I thought I was going to get my tax submitted early this year and get my refund quick, wrong answer. At the final step (One click update.) the software shutdown, expecting an automatic restart, nothiing. I clicked the Turbotax Icon, still nothing. After a reboot of Win XP and a click on the Turbotax icon still nothing. I then started looking in the quick start guide for a number to call as I had to do a couple of times in past years. No number to call only a URL. I went to the Intuit support website. After wading through many useless questions I still could not find an answer for my particular problme. To my shock I found that you now have to pay [$$]for tech support. That is [$$] for each "incident". The only free support was the useless webpage or an online live chat session. I opted for the live chat. I was greeted with a message saying I was 550 in the que. After waiting for over an hour for my turn to ask a question to a live person It seemed I was talking to a computer robot. The only answer I kept getting was "We are sorry for the inconvience. Check back in 24 hours for a fix." I kept asking diffrent questions only to get the same canned answer. When I asked how I could get a refund I was rudely disconnected. It has been over 24 hours and there is still no fix. It seems I am not the only one haveing this problem. Anyone that did the one click update on Jan 30, 2003 cannot get the software to run again. There is a message on there support page with the same canned message I got from the "Live support" last night. Considering that doing tax is a pain anyway this kind of problem is more than an inconvience. If there is ever a fix and it won't cost [$$]or more I am left wondering if all my work was lost? In my opinion Intuit is trying hard to be a company that will not be in business much longer. After having used this product for the last 6 years I wonder why they are trying so to mess with past success. Anyway I do not recommend this product anymore for the following reasons 1. Bad or little support. 2. Difficult installation 3. Unstable operation.
Rating:
Summary: Worst installation ever
Review: Ok this is what happened. I haven't even used the program yet. I put the cd into the drive. It asks me if I want to install it. I say OK. Then nothing happens. I assume its some type of autorun problem. So I go exploring on the cd manualy and run the setup program. Ok fine, they messed that up whatever. Next thing I do is run it. It comes up with all these things like do you want to install Microsoft Money. Why would I want to install it? I didn't buy Microsoft Money, and I know there are going to say will go here and buy the license key for that. Ok fine, they are pushy like a salesperson for a telephone provider. Next I run the update feature and it downloads a bunch of updates. So now it says its going to restart. I wait for it to restart. Nothing happens. So I try to load it. Nothing happens. So I reboot and try it. Nothing happens. So I reinstall it and try it again. Nothing happens. It just is locked up. Ok, I had to start doing some problem solving. What did I do different about the install? I did one thing different, installed the program to a separate harddrive. I do this because I run out of space on my first harddrive. I investigated and found that even if you specify what folder to install to, it will just ignore you and install to C:\Program Files, then putting some other data in the place you asked it to install. So I installed the default way and it worked. Also it installed a bunch of ... to my desktop like quicken brokerage, ing direct $50 bonus, SBC Dial Up Offer, and Special Offers. This company must of really lost its focus with its customers. I doubt I will recomend anything Intuit does to anyone, probably tell them to use a Microsoft program. I loaded up the program, I wasn't impressed. I think 12 year old with Visual Basic could of done the forms. So anyway that is my opinion and I haven't really worked with the software. Hopefully my experience will be better in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Ignore the naysayers
Review: I just installed TT2002 and managed to do my taxes in about an hour. It helps that I keep a folder into which I drop all my tax documents so all I had to do was open an envelope, bring up the Easy Step Navigator and type in the form number - TT does the rest. I just fill in the numbers. Oh yea, and I automatically downloaded the W2. No mess, no stress. No problems. I've read thru the reviews and felt compelled to add my 2 cents. The product is sound, the help system is the best I've ever encountered. For years, I spent $250+ to have an accountant do my taxes. This was incredibly easy and much cheaper than my accountant. My tax situation includes: two salaried incomes, unemployment income, contractor income (it was a tough year!), business deductions, itemized deductions based on mortgage, property taxes, charitable contributions. Contributions to a SEP-IRA, and having to write off worthless stock (my old company went bankrupt).
I'm running it on a Mac OS X and yes, I can still burn CDs. I'm not sure what all these other folks are complaining about, but my experience has been problem free.
Rating:
Summary: Stay Away From Turbo Tax!!!
Review: I was a avid Turbo Tax supporter since 1995. In 2001 I used Turbo Tax 2001 Home/Business. The software made a serious error which the IRS caught. It didn't calculate correctly and left off my eduction credit, gave two figures for my business income, and mistated my adjusted gross income. I had to verify all the incorrect information with the IRS. It took two months and many calls to the IRS to get my refund after electronically filing. Turbo Tax doesn't have a toll free number to call for help. You have to pay for assistance with their products. If you go online they have an online chat room, which gives you no help. Needless to say when I file my 2003 taxes I will go with Tax Cut by H&R Block. Intuit has gone down the drain. I wouldn't want anyone to go through the drama I did with this piece of crap product.
Rating:
Summary: Stuff is garbage!
Review: This copy protection is dumb.
Copy proction may be a necessary evil, but the Macrovision/C-Dilla LMS system has gone too far when;
1. The Program being installed and Macrovision/C-Dilla DO NOT INFORM THE USER that this software is being installed,
2. That Macrovision/C-Dilla in any manner ATTEMPS TO HIDE THEIR INSTALL from install monitoring or registry tracking software,
3. That Macrovision/C-Dilla DOES NOT UNINSTALL with the original software, when it is removed/uninstalled from the system. Because C-dilla requires a separate uninstall, which in all likely hood, the user never knew existed.
As a 4th point I was going to include a reference to the Interference with the users CD-RW but I don't understand all the calls being made by the C-dilla software/dll's. Seems they make a ton of them. Seems like an aweful lot of calls just to check to see if it's registered. All I can say is that MANY people have trouble writing CDR's right after installing Turbotax.
Just a whole lot easier to use TaxCut.
And Dustin Horne who thinks no one knows anything needs to get his head out of the sand and do his own research.
If they didn't want copys being made than they should have just put the copy protection that game makers use.
No telephone call there and their protection works.
Rating:
Summary: Great product, but Product Activation on WinXP is a big PAIN
Review: I'd love to be able to tell more about the product, but after two days I can't get in. The Product Activation feature has me locked out, Intuit tech support has been useless, their web page has my problem listed as a 'known issue' with no apparent resolve. If you have Windows 2000/XP, hope your install goes better than mine -- wish I would have bought TaxCut this year...
Rating:
Summary: Too bad you don't care about your clients...
Review: I've used Turbo Tax for years but this is the last time I'll buy this product. No, I do not want to do my taxes on a machine connected to the Internet! No, I do not want to enter a gadzillion digits on a phone keypad. No, I do not want the C_dilla folder added to my ROOT directory. Goodby Intuit, I'll find another product next year or go back to doing my taxes by hand.
Rating:
Summary: Intuit going downhill
Review: I almost bought TurboTax while in the store, but something told me to wait. Thank goodness I saw an article about the new product activation, and all the reviews here on Amazon.com
I too have been using Parson's Personal Tax Edge and then TurboTax for many years. When I heard about the product activation, that was the last straw. I almost forgot about the problems I had last year. After installing TurboTax, it gave me a reminder to download and install the latest update. When I tried, it said I have to have Internet Explorer. Well, I use Netscape, not IE. Trying to call techsupport proved fruitless unless I wanted to spend money. Sorry, I've already paid once for your product. Then I see the free online chat. Cool, that should get me an answer. Well, when I tried to use their online chat, it says I must install Internet Explorer. You have no right to force me to use one particular browser over another. I thought Microsoft's attempt to buy Intuit failed. But now it looks like they may have gotten some sort of toe hold in there anyway. I eventually got a live person on the phone, probably the sales department. They immediately offered to send me a cd with the updates. So much for the electronic age. Anyway, I've always felt TurboTax was a good product and was very willing to pay their modest fee for the product. But, by requiring Internet Explorer for updates and support, and now finally the product activation feature, I feel they have gone downhill in good customer relations. Something to keep in mind; if you make a good product and have good customer service and support, then people will be willing to pay money for it. If someone is going to steal your software, they probably would never pay money for it anyway. They will go elsewhere and steal something else. So by trying to crack down on piracy, you are losing two customer bases; the honest ones and the pirates.
By the way, I couldn't even find an email address on Intuit's website to write them about my concerns. A former TurboTax user. :(
Rating:
Summary: If you posted about c-dilla you made yourself look stupid.
Review: Alright people. First off, anyone that posted here without researching is[n't smart]. First, let's talk about their licensing scheme. I have very little problem with it. The big problem in the current pc world is software piracy. They are doing away with that, however, i feel they should make it more flexible. Now, let's talk about C-dilla. 99% of you that posted have no clue what it actually is. First off, it only uses CPU cycles when the program using it is being run. This is because it is controlled through a DLL (dynamic link library) and DOES NOT WRITE FILES TO HIDDEN SECTORS. In fact, the only thing written on your disk that any resonably knowledgable user wouldn't be able to access is your disks table of contents and file system information, such as whether the disk is FAT, FAT32, NTFS, or a Linux compatible partition. To the guy that said the registry is stored there... Your registry is actually comprised of multiple files and can be edited using regedit from the start/run command. c-dilla is a "Licensing Management System" and is actually very popular among high end professional applications. It is not malware. It is not spyware. All it does is provides companies with a universal form of copy protection so they can purchase the protection instead of hiring programmers to design their own. This saves you money. To accuse Intuit of installing spyware, take note that you are also accusing AutoDesk (AutoCad software) and Discreet (3D Studio Max) who also use c-dilla as their licensing management system. And in Add/Remove programs...surprise surprise...you can remove c-dilla. And it has NOTHING to do with your CD-RW drive. If you can't burn cd's, then you shouldn't have bought [this item]. All pages on the internet claiming it's a Trojan, Spyware, or anything other than a copy protection tool are bogus. Intuit should sue you all for slander. Maybe their program isn't the best this year, but you're advising against it for false reasons and maliciously spreading untrue information. Bottomline. Do your research instead of jumping on the bandwagon.
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