Does QCleanUI uninstall conflict with TurboTax?

BK

We know that using the QCleanUI program is the better way of uninstalling Quicken Windows, followed by deleting or renaming residual folders.  The issue is that QCleanUI seems to damage any existing TurboTax (TT) desktop installation where:

* on the current 2021 version of TT, it requires reentry of the TT license key and the activation process (I personally experienced this and there is one report of it on the Quicken community as well), and

* on the prior versions damages the TT install and requires re-installation of TT.

This may use up the 5 license allowance of TurboTax, especially with the current TT 2021 version since their product activation process is new and different from the past.

Have any of you Quicken + TT desktop users experienced this or is this conflict isolated for some reason?

Sherlock

For what its worth, we last performed a Quicken clean uninstall on 10/27/2021 and it did not appear to impact TurboTax 2020 or 2019.  We have since installed TurboTax 2021 but have not performed a Quicken clean uninstall.

Rocket J Squirrel

I can confirm that QCleanUI does something that causes TT 2021 to believe it is a fresh install. It displays the EULA and asks for an activation code.

I did not find damage to older versions (yet), but it does the same thing to TT 2020: EULA plus activation prompt. I probably don't have that year's activation code any more. TT 2019 seemed to reinstall itself but worked.

This makes QCleanUI dangerous on a PC running TT.

BK

Rocket J Squirrel said:

I can confirm that QCleanUI does something that causes TT 2021 to believe it is a fresh install. It displays the EULA and asks for an activation code.

Exactly my experience too.  FYI, you don't even need to have Quicken installed at all.  Just run the QCleanUI > Clean all and that is the result for TT 2021.

On the older version of TurboTax, this is the error I got when I ran TT 2020:

Rocket J Squirrel said:

...

This makes QCleanUI dangerous on a PC running TT.

Agree.

Rocket J Squirrel

@BK, thanks for reporting this!

I had TT 2021 act like a fresh install a couple of days ago, but did not make the connection to QCleanUI and figured it was a fluke. Now having run it purposely, it is clearly removing something that TT needs. I didn't see the message about <file with very long name> missing from the .cab, though.

There must be some old code in QCleanUI which is still touching either files or registry entries with "Intuit" in their paths.

I have flagged this thread for moderator attention in hopes they can report it to the developers for remediation.

BK

@Rocket J Squirrel ,  Of course and thank you for flagging it.  This can eat up the 5-license allowance of TT 2021 and I think I may have already used 3 of mine!  In the interim, it would also be a good idea for the moderators to revise the QCleanUI support writeup to include some warning for TurboTax desktop users IMO.  Cheers.

Chris_QPW

That procedure really needs updating



The older versions of Quicken use those folders but Quicken Subscription hasn't used them in years.
Quicken Subscription uses these folders:
C:\ProgramData\Quicken
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Quicken
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Quicken

It also says to uninstall Quicken before running QCleanUI, this is WRONG!
If you uninstall Quicken before running QCleanUI I will do nothing!
It needs the "uninstall record" in the Windows registry to start the tracking down of what to remove.
This has been pointed out so many times by me and @thecreator that we have just given up on telling people.

If you leave Quicken Subscription installed it will get uninstalled as part of the process and will clean up the register settings.

Quicken Kathryn

Thank you for reporting this, @BK and @Rocket J Squirrel - we've reported this to our development team and have opened a ticket to investigate.  

@BK just to verify, did you download the QCleanUI utility from the FAQ, or was this an existing version of the utility that was on your computer?  

@Chris_QPW we'll work on the FAQ as well--because the subscription version performs the QCleanUI on installation, we may not need to advise users to download the free-standing utility at all anymore--

Thanks--

[CTP-3417]

Ps56k2

Quicken Kathryn said: we'll work on the FAQ as well--because the subscription version performs the QCleanUI on installation, we may not need to advise users to download the free-standing utility at all anymore--

Is the QCleanUI left in any folder for future access - or does it only exist during Quicken installs ?

Chris_QPW

Quicken Kathryn said:

@Chris_QPW we'll work on the FAQ as well--because the subscription version performs the QCleanUI on installation, we may not need to advise users to download the free-standing utility at all anymore--

Thanks--

[CTP-3417]

Is it really done on install, I would think it would be done on uninstall.

At any rate if it is rewritten for only Quicken Subscription, some kind of plans need to be made for older versions of Quicken.

Rocket J Squirrel

Quicken Kathryn said:

because the subscription version performs the QCleanUI on installation, we may not need to advise users to download the free-standing utility at all anymore
[CTP-3417]

Danger, Will Robinson! If QCleanUI runs every time a new release installs, it will clobber TurboTax anew each time. Is there any way to disable the automatic QCleanUI when installing a new release?

Chris_QPW

I'm 99% sure that they wouldn't do this during the patch install.  It would be either during the full install or more likely the uninstall.

I have updated several times since installing TurboTax and had no problems.

BK

Quicken Kathryn said:

 
@BK just to verify, did you download the QCleanUI utility from the FAQ, or was this an existing version of the utility that was on your computer?  

[CTP-3417]

 @Quicken Kathryn It was an existing version on my computer dated 4/29/2020 for both files.  Very good question!

Having said that, another user reported this issue about a week ago after the moderator suggested to use the QCleanUI to uninstall and reinstall.  Draw your own assumptions and conclusion on this.

Rocket J Squirrel said: Danger, Will Robinson! If QCleanUI runs every time a new release installs, it will clobber TurboTax anew each time. Is there any way to disable the automatic QCleanUI when installing a new release?

I have no knowledge of QCleanUI running during installs, but I too read in one of the writeups that it does (I just remembered it).  Hence I agree with the "Danger" signal.  However, ditto as what @Chris_QPW wrote, I can confirm that Quicken installation or patch updates do not impact TT.

Edit: for some reason the @'s are not working for me today

BK

I just downloaded it from the FAQ and same result - breaks the TT2021 activation.

There is a way to test this without using up your TT license allocation, but you need another computer or I use VM.

- There is no need to have or install Quicken at all - your choice.

- Install TT2021 but do NOT enter your license / don't activate.  (You can optionally even disable your Internet after you install TT).

- Launch TT and Only agree to their "License Agreement" popup window (step-1) by clicking "I Agree".

- Close TT and relaunch it.  It wants you to activate (step-2).  Don't.  But this step-2 tells you that you just went passed the step-1 "License Agreement".  Close TT.

- Now run QCleanUI

- Launch TT2021 again.  You are presented with the "License Agreement" popup window (step-1) again.  This is an indication that QCleanUI broke it.

EDIT: I have experienced this issue (the error with TT2020 that I posted and 2019) since 2020. But back then it was not a big deal since it didn't require reactivation.  Reinstallation solved it.  But now due to the new reactivation method in TT2021, makes this a critical issue I think.

BK

Here is the other post I mentioned, dated Jan 19, where he wrote: "Not sure which function caused TurboTax to be deactivated."

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20237236

BK

Update after R38.30 for everyone including @Quicken Kathryn

R38.30's release note says "What’s Fixed: Using QClean could cause a TurboTax registration to be removed".

I just tested this with multiple main install files as well as Mondo patch releases, and none of them break the TT-2021's registration.  So personally I don't understand the release notes.  What was broken that got fixed wrt/ TT in R38.30?  Anyone?

However for the record, it does NOT appear that they have revised/fixed the QCleanUI scripts, since running them still break TT-2021's registration (I just downloaded fresh copies).

This is not a criticism - just reporting my new findings to be helpful.

Chris_QPW

It didn't make any sense to me either.  I haven't seen any reports of just installing an uninstalling causing problems.  And I can tell you for absolute certainty that they have not changed the web page download.  I've done a binary compare on both files and they have not changed.  

Why they think they fixed it I have no idea.

bill20

Q clean also deletes Quicken Medical Expense Manager if anyone uses it, I always lose that program as well

splasher

Chris_QPW said:

It didn't make any sense to me either.  I haven't seen any reports of just installing an uninstalling causing problems.  And I can tell you for absolute certainty that they have not changed the web page download.  I've done a binary compare on both files and they have not changed.  

Why they think they fixed it I have no idea.

It could be that they have embedded a copy of QCleanUI in QW.exe and that is what they fixed, but with incredible shortsightedness they haven't seen fit to change the download version or warn users to not use the old version.

Chris_QPW

splasher said:

Chris_QPW said:

It didn't make any sense to me either.  I haven't seen any reports of just installing an uninstalling causing problems.  And I can tell you for absolute certainty that they have not changed the web page download.  I've done a binary compare on both files and they have not changed.  

Why they think they fixed it I have no idea.

It could be that they have embedded a copy of QCleanUI in QW.exe and that is what they fixed, but with incredible shortsightedness they haven't seen fit to change the download version or warn users to not use the old version.

Long ago they did say that the QCleanUI was integrated into Quicken Subscription, that part isn't a surprise, it is in fact stated in the QCleanUI procedure:


But from what I have read on all of these reports is that it was happening after running the separate QCleanUI executable.  None seemed to imply that it was happening with the actual uninstall/install of Quicken.

That is where my confusion comes in.

And if you look at @BK's post above he has definitely confirmed that running QCleanUI.exe causes the problem, but they have yet to check that executable.

I don't know what they changed in Quicken, but it looks like at best they only did half the job, or more likely changed something that wasn't even causing a problem.

BK

Chris_QPW said:

but it looks like at best they only did half the job, or more likely changed something that wasn't even causing a problem.

My testing suggests exactly that - and that they changed something that wasn't the problem.

They really need to take a 3-step approach here as stated before:

- Put up a warning message in the QClean FAQ (which should be easy to do)

- Then fix the QClean scripts

- And finally, fix it such that Windows native Un-installation takes care of it, eliminating the need for the QClean scripts once and for all.

Chris_QPW

BK said:

Chris_QPW said:

but it looks like at best they only did half the job, or more likely changed something that wasn't even causing a problem.

- And finally, fix it such that Windows native Un-installation takes care of it, eliminating the need for the QClean scripts once and for all.

I believe they thought that is exactly what they did years ago by putting the QCleanUI "procedure" into the install of Quicken.

But in my opinion, they messed up in a couple ways.

First off if you look that that message in the QCleanUI article that I posted above it says that it is being done on the install, and this lines up with the statement @Quicken Kathryn posted above.  This kind of thing should be done on an uninstall, not an install.

Second, even though it states that they put the "QCleanUI procedure" in the install, that is definitely not what they did.  The "procedure" includes the removing of the configuration folders.  In my opinion almost all the problems that are solved by the "QCleanUI procedure" have to do with removing the (most likely corrupted) configuration files.  Quicken uses very little of the Windows Registry, and that is what the QCleanUI program itself is cleaning up.  The Windows registry settings do cause problems, but I think much less than the configuration files.

The Quicken uninstall and installs DON'T remove these folders.

What really should have been put in place is that the uninstall of Quicken should have a prompt that asks the user if they want to remove the configuration files and if the user said yes removing them for them, and do any "full clean up" of the Windows Registry.

Having the user hunt for hidden configuration files is just a bad practice especially when you know that they are a major source of install problems.

Quicken Kathryn

Hi All,
Just to follow up on this issue: we have updated the QCleanUI utility so that it will no longer impact the TurboTax installation.  This new utility will be in the R39 release of Quicken for Windows, and we are in the process of updating the FAQ with these new QCleanUI builds.

Thanks for helping us track down this issue!

BK

All, I did a quick cursory testing of the two new QClean files that they released yesterday 3/3/22 in the QClean FAQ.  They no longer seem to disable the TurboTax's activation.  So hopefully the issue is now fixed.

However, folder renaming of "Intuit" still shows up in the manual instructions as @Chris_QPW high-lighted in yellow earlier in this post.  Those instructions need to be updated so that the less savvy users don't damage their TurboTax installation.  Hoping to get @Quicken Kathryn attention on this low hanging fruit.

Thank you @Quicken Kathryn and the Quicken team.

Greg_the_Geek

Also, Step 2 should be eliminated. QCleanUI removes Quicken itself.