Quicken Expiration Banner [Edited]

townergc

My father was a Quicken user for many, many years. He passed away late last year (at 90) and I am trying to close out all of his finances. His subscription expired about a month ago and I did not renew it since I only need to open & create reports for the accounts as they exist now. I have no more transactions to download, I have no need for software updates, no need for web or companion apps, and no need for support services.

I have been using the app regularly since the subscription expired to make sure I understand my father's financial situation as I get taxes done. No problems until today.

Today when I launched the app, it updated without asking permission and now it has a giant yellow banner across the top of the app Yelling at me that my Membership has expired and a vertical banner taking up about 20% of the width of the app with an add Yelling the same thing.

Before I canceled the subscription I talked with Support to make sure I would be able to use Quicken without the other features and they assured me that I can. Yes I still can use the app just the experience is not friendly.

I am sorry Quicken if my use case no longer fits your business model, but I am not going to pay you when I do not need the app for the next month at most.

[Removed - Rant/Disruptive]

Tom Young

" it updated without asking permission"

I don't know it it really "updated" or simply noticed that the subscription expired.  Updating, or no, can be controlled by Window's UAC and mine's always on and I've never had the problem of Quicken updating if I didn't want it to.

Try disconnecting from the internet and opening yesterday's backup.  That might work, or it might not, but it's worth a try.

Chris_QPW

Tom Young said:

" it updated without asking permission"

I don't know it it really "updated" or simply noticed that the subscription expired.  Updating, or no, can be controlled by Window's UAC and mine's always on and I've never had the problem of Quicken updating if I didn't want it to.

Try disconnecting from the internet and opening yesterday's backup.  That might work, or it might not, but it's worth a try.

I doubt this has anything to do with an "update".  Quicken simply checked for status of the subscription and notice that it was expired.  Everything else reported is exactly how it is supposed to work.  Nothing new here.

mshiggins

Chris_QPW said:

Nothing new here.

Yup, nothing new. Quicken Inc is still choosing to annoy users with its heavy-handed expiration notices. 

Ps56k2

and... everything is not called an "app" - it still is old school "program" -
And, if you look in the far upper left corner - it will say what version - Starter - Deluxe - Premier -
If you happen to have Starter - then your data file is Read-Only, and you can't add or modify the data.
If you have Deluxe or Premier - then you have full use of the existing data file, and can still manually update it.

jacobs

townergc said:

For anyone reading this and considering using Quicken I'd ask you to consider this aggressive behavior as part of your decision. If you run into issues that prevent you from renewing, even for a couple of months, Quicken will treat you as they have treated me. They will attempt to badger and harass you and yell at you from the app home page. Do you really want to invest your time and effort putting your precious data into an app that is run in this manner.

Although it may be new to you, Quicken has been a subscription product since 2017. When a subscription expires, the program doesn't "yell" at you, it doesn't "harass" you,  but it does try to annoy you into renewing. Originally, Quicken executives had planned to make the program read-only for expired subscriptions, but after user complaints, they came up with what they felt was a compromise: users could continue to use the program manually, but they would steal about 20% of the screen real estate for messages about renewing. They felt then, and apparently continue to feel, that they don't owe extended loyalty to users who have decided not to continue to support them financially, but they allow users to continue to use the product with a little inconvenience. I think its a stupid way to try to entice users to renew, but I can see it from their side as well.

"If you run into issues that prevent you from renewing, even for a couple of months, Quicken will treat you as they have treated me." This I don't really understand. You can get the messages to go away instantly if you renew the subscription for another year. Or if your need is really short-term and you don't want to pay the money, then you can decide to put up with the messages. The choice is yours; they are not "treating you" in some unreasonable way. Would you expect the cable/Internet service at your father's house to continue working if you didn't continue to pay for that subscription? (And as Rick noted, you could "cheat" by buying a subscription and asking for a refund before 30 days pass.) 

Best wishes completing the work on your father's finances. 

jimoquinn

> @Chris_QPW said:
> I doubt this has anything to do with an "update".  Quicken simply checked for status of the subscription and notice that it was expired.  Everything else reported is exactly how it is supposed to work.  Nothing new here.

My man, you really code ImportQIF in Perl?

Chris_QPW

jimoquinn said:

> @Chris_QPW said:
> I doubt this has anything to do with an "update".  Quicken simply checked for status of the subscription and notice that it was expired.  Everything else reported is exactly how it is supposed to work.  Nothing new here.

My man, you really code ImportQIF in Perl?

Yes, ImportQIF is coded in Perl.  Most people don't realize that Perl is a full-fledged programming language, and instead tend to call it a "script".