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Share your experience running QM2007 in a Virtual Machine (VM) (on Intel & Apple Silicon Mx Macs)

smayer97

If you try running QM2007 in a VM, such as, VMware Fusion, Parallels, VirtualBox, UTM/QEmu, etc, please share your experience with others below.
- what works
- what does not
- quirky behaviour
- etc.

Do specify the following:
- what version of QM2007 you are using
- what VM and what version you are using
- what version of the host macOS
- what version of the client macOS running in the VM.

Information now includes running on Apple Silicon Mx-based (M1/M2/M3/M4+) Macs.

A related resource to consider: register Q for Mac 2007 on new machine

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Quicken 2007

Comments

joek1956

Wish I had positive results to report, but I have been utterly unable to get Quicken 2007 (v 16.2.4) to run in Parallels 15.1.1 with MacOS 10.14.6 virtualization. Installation of Parallels, MacOS, and Quicken were easy and uneventful, but every time I try to open an imported Quicken file I receive an “unable to load file” message. Others on the internet report the same problem. The method of Quicken file import doesn’t seem to matter – direct drag-and-drop, dropbox transfer, backup file import, qif file import – none work. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated – I have been a Quicken user since 1989 (v 1.5!) and would very much like to continue to use it.

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smayer97

Thanks for sharing...is the VM installed on a APFS or HFS+ volume? Have you tried the latter?

Also, what version is the host macOS?

smayer97

@joek1956 I see that you posted your same issue on this useful thread showing that users have been successful:

https://tidbits.com/2019/09/18/moving-to-catalina-keep-your-32-bit-mac-apps-running-with-parallels/

It seems the solution for one person is to make sure the Backup folder is located in the Documents folder INSIDE the VM drive, not in the host OS drive area.

Have you tried this?

joek1956

Thanks for the questions and suggestions, which I just noticed. The host system is running MacOS 10.14.6 installed on a APFS volume. (I wanted to make sure that Quicken would run in the VM before I upgraded to Catalina.)

After much trial and error, I was able to solve my problem by compressing the Quicken data file into a .zip file and then importing it into the VM. Success! I really have no idea why this worked but am glad it did.

smayer97

Thanks for sharing that insight. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the source data file was located on an APFS volume.

Glad you have it working now.

BTW, if you do a Get Info of the volume/drive inside the VM, what format is it showing up as, Mac OS Extended or APFS? Also, just to be sure, what version of the client OS did you install; was it macOS 10.14 Mojave?

kchin45

https://registerqt.intuit.com/reg?regclientid.name=QMAC&regclientid.version=1.0&licensenumber=&eoc=148125&macsproductid=298518

Glad to see this link. I too recently move my QM 2007 to a VM on a new Mac Desktop.

App: Quicken for Mac 2007 Ver. 16.2.4

VM: Parallels Desktop 15 for Mac

VM OS: OSX El Capitan v 10.11.6

Host OS. macOS Catalina v 10.15.3

I got the old program turn on and old data transferred in the VM, It is the only app in the VM environment. I even download a El Capitan compatible printer driver. I will ask for help in the printing info later.

One problem I encounter is that whenever I use "QUOTE" to down load Security prices, it wants to registration. But when I click to open the link:

https://registerqt.intuit.com/reg?regclientid.name=QMAC&regclientid.version=1.0&licensenumber=&eoc=148125&macsproductid=298518

It fails to open every time. I wonder if the link to no longer supported. Is there a work around?

Thanks for the help?

smayer97

Yes, Quote updates were disabled in the Fall of 2019. The alternative is to manually import security prices using CSV or QIF.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

kchin45

Thanks for update on Quote service, I am at lost with another issue. After working in the VM (Parallels 15) for several weeks, I try to save a backup file inside the VM, a window pops up requesting registration. I been using this program since 2007, property registered with Quicken and never needed to register again. So I click the link, and it would not connect. I should have known that the specific server probably no long in service. When I dismissed the registration window, I realize that I loss all the security data I manually entered again, as you suggested. This happens every time I try to do a back up or shutdown Quicken within the VM. Does anyone else has this problem or figured out a work around?

smayer97

Have you double checked your backup folder location in the QM2007 preferences? t seems it has to be a folder within the VM that is not a shared folder either. Not sure if any of that is what is affecting you.

kchin45

I check my Quicken backup folder. It is in my VM "Documents" Folder. the "QData" file is inside a "Backup" Folder, not share with other files. Is that a problem if the back up file not in the VM root storage volume? In the past (in my old OSX El Capitan) that was never a problem.

What is a proper file hierarchy for the account and backup files in the VM?

So far, I am relying on backing up the whole computer storage volume rather than backing up Quicken in the VM volume.

smayer97

Normally it should not matter but this is uncharted territory so YMMV. Experiment with different locations to see if it matters.

smayer97

joek1956 said:

Thanks for the questions and suggestions, which I just noticed. The host system is running MacOS 10.14.6 installed on a APFS volume. (I wanted to make sure that Quicken would run in the VM before I upgraded to Catalina.)

After much trial and error, I was able to solve my problem by compressing the Quicken data file into a .zip file and then importing it into the VM. Success! I really have no idea why this worked but am glad it did.

As I was re-reading your solution it dawned on me that the possible reason for your difficulty and your eventual success might be an issue of file permissions, which compressing a file to move it and decompressing it in its new location can often correct. This might be the case here, since the VM environment is essentially a "new user" with different permissions that needed to be adjusted, and likely were on decompressing the file.

smayer97

kchin45 said:

Thanks for update on Quote service, I am at lost with another issue. After working in the VM (Parallels 15) for several weeks, I try to save a backup file inside the VM, a window pops up requesting registration. I been using this program since 2007, property registered with Quicken and never needed to register again. So I click the link, and it would not connect. I should have known that the specific server probably no long in service. When I dismissed the registration window, I realize that I loss all the security data I manually entered again, as you suggested. This happens every time I try to do a back up or shutdown Quicken within the VM. Does anyone else has this problem or figured out a work around?

After some thought I realized that part of the problem may be that the VM environment new to the copy of QM2007 and unless you copied over the settings and preference files, as far as QM2007 is concerned, it has NOT been registered (in the VM environment. BUT since the registration servers are no longer in service, you cannot complete this step.

The best would be to track down the preference files and copy them into their respective locations in the VM environment. You may want to ZIP them first before moving them into the VM storage area to avoid any Permissions related issues.

To find and move your preferences file(s), please read this post:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/19417032/#Comment_19417032

If you give this a try, please report back any results.

kchin45

Thank you for the ideas. I might just try that to see if it helps. Any suggestion on how to locate and identifying the "preference file?" I apologize I am ignorant about QM 2007 file structures.

BTW, that "Quote" might have been discontinue as you noted. I discover I can use the "Historical" function to download from one month to 5 years worth of Security prices. Hope that adds to the knowledge base if others are running into the same problem.

I am hoping more people will join this conversation.

kchin45

smeyer97,
Sorry, I should have read your reply more closely. I missed the link you included. I will read that instruction more closely. I'll try to report back later. Thanks again.

smayer97

kchin45 said:

...

BTW, that "Quote" might have been discontinue as you noted. I discover I can use the "Historical" function to download from one month to 5 years worth of Security prices. Hope that adds to the knowledge base if others are running into the same problem.

I am hoping more people will join this conversation.

That is definitely news to me. Thanks for sharing.

smayer97

@kchin45 said:

Thank you for the ideas. I might just try that to see if it helps. Any suggestion on how to locate and identifying the "preference file?" I apologize I am ignorant about QM 2007 file structures.

@kchin45 said:
smeyer97,
Sorry, I should have read your reply more closely. I missed the link you included. I will read that instruction more closely. I'll try to report back later. Thanks again.

Have you tried this yet? If so, how did it go?

CharlieInSeattle

Today I finally set up my new iMac running Catalina. I went with Parallels to host my virtual machine running Mojave. That in turn allowed me to set up Quicken Mac 2007 16.2.4 (build 25.686.100). I decided that the cost of paying for Parallels was worth it. I did have a problem and used the 24/7 live tech support on Sunday afternoon. Overall, I think the help file for installing Mojave via Parallels was the easiest to execute. Tech support alerted me to my problem though not the exact solution. I re-downloaded and properly installed Parallels Tools, got it configured right. Then I set up Quicken and moved a compressed copy of the data file via a thumb drive. That was recognized fine by Quicken.

Quicken behaved itself fine from the start, but I had to revisit the setup of some of my keyboard shortcuts. Fortunately, Parallels does a nice job of managing keyboard shortcuts at various system levels. That allowed me to reassign CMD-H to my primary checking account and restore CMD-R for starting a Quick Report.

I'll do a lot more testing, but so far it looks like I'll be able to continue using Quicken 2007 for Mac for the foreseeable future. After I evaluated all the new competition, I concluded that nothing could touch the efficiency and versatility of the Quicken version I've been using for about 20 years! Amazing.

CharlieInSeattle

I forgot to mention that I only do manual entry of transactions and I don't do any stock tracking on Quicken. That could be a deal-breaker for some folks.

smayer97

Thx for sharing.

smayer97

VMWare a few weeks ago released Fusion v12 for FREE for personal use for the first time (usually $80-$99 price tag... vs Pro version that is now bumped from $149 to $199... not needed for most people...FREE version has all the same essential capabilities...no crippled software).

Check it out here: https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/fusion-evaluation.html

Min System requirements: macOS 10.15 Catalina.

Tedddmp

I had not upgraded to Mac OS Catalina only because Quicken 2007 for Mac was not compatible.

I decided to upgrade when VMware Fusion Player 12 became available for free for home use.

I’m a newby to this process and after significant effort I was able to get Mac Quicken 2007 for Mac to run using my old data file within a virtual machine running Mac OS Mojave.

Hopefully others can have a smoother experience with what I learned.

Hardware: Mac mini (2018) - 3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 - 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4 - Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB/2TB flash storage in APFS.
Host macOS: Catalina version 10.15.7.
VM: VMware Fusion 12.0.0.
Client macOS: MacOS Mojave version 10.14.6.
Quicken: Quicken for Mac 2007 version 16.2.3 (initially as that was what I had been using and which worked; then upgraded to 16.2.4 (build 25.886.100) which seems to continue to work).

What I did/found helpful:

Update macOS on host Mac:
- Run Disk Utility on host Mac.
- Backup host Mac.
- Update host macOS.
- Run Disk Utility on host Mac.

Obtain VMware Fusion Player - Personal Use
- Register for a VMware account: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=fusion-player-personal
- Log in: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=fusion-player-personal
- Manually download VMware Fusion 12.0.0 (for Intel-based Macs)

Install VMware Fusion Player - Personal Use
- NOTE: It may have been possible to skip the below install/uninstall/install cycle had I read this first: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2151770?lang=en_US

- Install VMware Fusion Player - Personal Use
- I received the error “Could not open /dev/vmmon: Broken pipe, while launching the Virtual Machine (80467)”. Resolved using: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/80467
- I had to manually uninstall VMware Fusion: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1017838?lang=en_US
- Reinstall VMware Fusion Player - Personal Use

Obtain macOS Mojave
- Link to download macOS Mojave from App Store: Get macOS Mojave on https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210190
- “Install macOS Mojave.app” should be 6.05 GB.

Open VMWare Fusion

Create New Virtual Machine
- Drag “Install macOS Mojave.app” onto “Install from disc or image”

Complete creation of new virtual machine running macOS Mojave.

On host mac, compress the Quicken data file.
- Select Quicken Data and compress this .qdfm file to a .zip file. (CRITICAL ACTION)

On host mac, copy the compressed Quicken data file to iCloud Drive.
- NOTE: copying an uncompressed Quicken data file will NOT copy the entire file as the copy of the file in iCloud is significantly smaller than the source file. This is the cause of the frequently cited “unable to load file” message.

On host mac, copy the Quicken 2007.app to iCloud Drive.

Open Mojave virtual machine.

On Mojave virtual machine, from iCloud drive copy the compressed Quicken data file to the Documents folder on the virtual machine drive.

On Mojave virtual machine, open the compressed Quicken data file to uncompress the file.

On Mojave virtual machine, from iCloud drive copy Quicken 2007 to the Applications folder on the virtual machine drive.

Open Quicken 2007.

Enter name.

Skip “Welcome to Quicken.”

Choose uncompressed Quicken Data file.

Bob’s your uncle.

smayer97

@Tedddmp NICE! Thanks for sharing that level of detail. Will be helpful to even the newbie. :-)

fizzylogic

Greetings all! smayer97 asked me to post this here, following a question he asked me from a different thread. As it happens, this is the thread that originally prompted me to download Fusion 12 a couple of months ago, based on the excellent summary provided by Tedddmp.

I was able to get Fusion 12 set up on my 2020 MacBook Pro running Big Sur, but I ran into a few challenges trying to create a Mojave VM in which to run Quicken 2007. Following is a summary, based on the notes I made during my attempts to get it working:

I was only able to download Mojave successfully from my 2017 iMac (running High Sierra), using this link: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/23/how-to-get-an-old-macos-installer-from-apple

When attempting to download the Mojave installer directly to the 2020 MacBook Pro, clicking the App Store “download” or “get” button returned a message stating, "Update not found. The requested version of macOS is not available." Trying it on my 2009 iMac (Snow Leopard/El Capitan) and 2011 MacBook Pro (Lion/El Capitan) both produced messages indicating “this computer is not able to run the desired OS,” or something to that effect.

Once I finally got it downloaded and copied to the new MacBook Pro, dragging “Install macOS Mojave” into VM Fusion produced a message indicating the software was damaged. This was due to the Mojave certificate being expired and invalidated. Searching the web produced a suggestion to confirm initial release date for Mojave (September 24, 2018) and set the MBP’s system clock for a date after this, but prior to the OS expiration date of October 24, 2019. I set the clock to December 14, 2018, but this didn’t work. (Further reading revealed that this trick only works with Mavericks OS 10.9 and older.)

Another website produced the solution that worked. Simply right-click on the "Install macOS Mojave" app to reveal package contents and delete the installinfo.plist file.

Installation of Mojave 10.14.0.22 was successful using Fusion’s default hard drive (40GB), cores (2), and memory (2GB) settings. Hard drive size later expanded to 60GB. Quicken 2007 seems to work fine, except for this new inability to download quotes. Upon clicking the "Download Quotes" button, the text below the progress bar appears to strobe a few times between "Connecting to the Quicken Quotes server," and "Cancelling," before it gives up. That issue is currently an active discussion topic on this thread: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20162105/#Comment_20162105

Hope this helps!

-fizzy

fizzylogic

One more data point regarding my VMware Fusion 12/Mojave/Q7M experience:

Since returning to these boards just recently after a long absence, I've been reading through some of the Quicken 2007 for Mac discussion threads, and I've noticed multiple references to Q7's automatic backup not working under Mojave. This isn't exactly true, as a few others have already noted.

It appears that automatic backup works fine on any OS that can still run Q7M, but only if the data files are contained on an HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) volume rather than APFS. I don't recall now if Fusion even allowed the main VM drive to be created as anything other than APFS, but but my Mojave "Macintosh HD" drive under Fusion 12 is indeed formatted APFS.

However...I had no problem partitioning this virtual drive to create a second, smaller HFS+ volume just for Quicken data files (and any others that might not play nice under APFS).

I'm not using the Fusion/Mojave/Q7M program on a regular basis, but I wanted to have it ready in case my main (High Sierra) computer crashes, or I'm forced to update the OS for some reason. The other night, I fired up Quicken on the VM to test whether it would import stock quotes via QIF, since Quicken has apparently pulled the plug on their quotes server. It worked fine (whew!) and after quitting Quicken, I confirmed that my backups folder contains documents named "1FILENAME," "2FILENAME," etc., all with "Created" date matching the first time I launched this installation of Quicken. The "1FILENAME" document showed the current date for "Modified."

The "FILENAME.qdfm" backup file that is updated upon every exit out of Quicken was also present and showed the correct "Modified" date.

smayer97

@fizzylogic thanks for confirming all that. It is more good news.

tmplee

Thanks to everyone in this thread and the detailed reports. I recently got a 2018 mac mini to replace a much older one, and didn't want to get the newest mini since I want to keep running Mojave so I can run QM2007. The mac mini came with Big Sur installed and I've had a devil of a time trying to "downgrade" it to Mojave, or even just dual-boot, despite reading, seemingly, every single comment on the net on the topic! (I was eventually able to get what I think is a good copy of Mojave. In fact, I accidentally, yes, upgraded my laptop that was running High Sierra to it! Don't ask.) I have one more set of things to try and if those fail I'm going to try the VMWare Fusion route. The trick about deleting the install prefs file seems well worth remembering! By the way, the thread about the quotes server did eventually give the solution to that problem (add a line to the etc/hosts file to force quicken to go to the right place for quotes.)

9/25/25 EDIT[smayer97]: see this thread on how to redirect getting quotes from the correct server:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7889807/quicken-quotes-server-on-the-fritz/p1

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20165581/#Comment_20165581

"Modify your /etc/hosts file.

qw.quicken.com resolves to 209.234.234.183, so add the following to your /etc/hosts file:

209.234.225.183 qw2007.quicken.com

Now restart the computer, and click the Quotes download button in Quicken. Up to date prices!

Here are instructions on editing the hosts file:
https://www.imore.com/how-edit-your-macs-hosts-file-and-why-you-would-want#how-to-edit-the-hosts-file "

smayer97

Just FYI, currently QM2007 can only run on an Intel-based Mac in a VM, since QM2007 can only run on macOS 10.14 Mojave or older, and currently no VM is able to run macOS 10.14 Mojave or older on a Mx-based Mac.

smayer97

Fusion v13 PRO is now free for personal use (available after the new acquisition in Nov 2023 by Broadcom), currently at v13.5.x:

https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2024/05/fusion-pro-now-available-free-for-personal-use.html

1. Go to Broadcom's support page

2. Create an account (if you do not already have one) by clicking 'Register'.

3. Click 'I'll do it later" when asked to build your profile.

4. Download VMWare Fusion here: download Fusion 13 Pro here

5. Choose the top option "VMWare Fusion Pro for Personal Use".

6. You may have to continue as follows:

After you are logged into the Dashboard,

From the Top Right, select the Division "VMware Cloud Foundation"

Select "My Downloads"

Search for VMware Fusion

Select the version you want

Click to accept Broadcom's T&Cs

Click on the Download icon

Enter info to verify your account, if prompted. Then wait for account verification before you can download.

Min system requirement (host OS) is macOS 10.12 Monterey (Intel & Mx Apple Silicon)

P.S. Workstation 17 Pro is ALSO now available for free for personal use (runs only on Windows CPU)

smayer97

Fusion is now free for personal AND commercial use, as of Nov 11, 2024.

https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2024/11/11/vmware-fusion-and-workstation-are-now-free-for-all-users/

For more details, go here: https://www.vmware.com/products/desktop-hypervisor/workstation-and-fusion