Posted on 07/28/2004 8:35:33 PM PDT by Smogger
Anyone who logged into their Microsoft Money file between Monday (8/26/2004) afternoon and Tuesday (8/27/2004) morning and logged out again has been locked out of their money file. They are going crazy on the newsgroups about this and people are calling the WSJ and ABC news and anyone else they can think of to resolve the problem.
I have already spent an entire day installing and uninstalling and restoring backups. Hopefully I haven't screwed up my money file because as it turns out there is nothing wrong with the file or the backups at all.
From Microsoft:
----------
Subject: Users locked out of their local Money file From: "Russ Paul-Jones" Sent: 7/28/2004 3:47:26 PM
Redmond, July 28, 2004, 15:45 PDT
Here at the Money team we are sorry that we have caused this problem, and we are working as quickly as possible to fix this unfortunate situation.
Let me take a moment to explain what the Money team is doing about this problem. First, let me assure you that none of your financial data has been lost, and none of your personal information has been compromised. In fact, the result of the situation has been that your information has been locked up more tightly.
Here is what happened, and an analogy to help explain it. On Monday, one type of our servers was updated and inadvertently pointed to the wrong location to verify authentication. The authentication process worked perfectly - we caused the problem by looking in the wrong server location. This mistake only affected Money services. (If you think of your login information as a key, and our servers as a lock, then we changed the lock on the safe, and the old key wouldn't work anymore. There is no way for the user [or anybody else] to create working login information. The good news is that nobody could open the local file because of this mistake at any time; your information is still protected.)
We corrected the "wrong server location" problem Tuesday morning, and users who did not login between late Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning should be able to use their files normally.
Those who were affected may continue to be affected, however, since Money downloaded some of the garbled information from our servers. (Basically, we made a copy of the lock on your local file. Why did we do this? Because when you change the lock yourself, you don't want the old key to continue working on your local file. You also wouldn't want there to be an easy way for somebody on your machine to ignore the change in the locks. Of course, we will look at this scenario to see if we could solve it without decreasing security in the future.)
The next step is to fix the locks for those of you who are affected. We are putting every effort into a solution to this problem, which we will deliver as soon as possible. We expect to be able to address every user that we affected. I'll use this newsgroup to keep you posted.
-Russ Paul-Jones MSN Money
Holy crap! should I sell everything and start buying up gold???
Typical Microsoft quality.
Why use a money managment "tool" that call Redmond? M$ drones never cease to amaze me.
My Quicken Home & Business 1999 never looked better!
People trust MS with their finances? I don't even like trusting them with my OS!
DK
I've always wondered if the Clinton admin ever had any back alley "deals" with Gates.
In this case, the data is not online. Users can't get into files on their own computers. When Money is launched, it obviously communicates automatically with an update server, and the update server sent some crazy authentication routines that locked everyone out of their own local files.
MM
Yes, we were all dumb and linked money to a passport file.
Their excuse sounds phoney to me.
This may effect the market tomorrow.
Eeesh. I don't have a passport for my computer...don't even know what it is. (g)
I'm not having any problems logging into Money, but I don't use any of the internet features.
Sounds like one of those financial thriller mysteries...
Then you don't logon to money using a Passport, or you didn't logon between Monday afternoon and Tues morning.
We don't discuss any of that conspiracy shit, just a little golfing and Gin Rummy with our friends.
You obviusly have us confused with the Tirlateral Comission and the Elders of Zion.
So9
I did log on on Monday and Tuesday, but my copy still has the little link urging me to start using passport so my data will be safer.
Guess I showed them.:)
> Quicken.
May not be the answer. Be sure to check and see if new
versions of Quicken have Activation and/or are time-bombed
(force subscription-based licensing) and/or also have the
same auto-update or other phone-home risks.
I stopped using Intuit QuickBooks just before it went to
subscription, and stopped using TurboTax just before it
went to Activation (and an unreliable Activation at that).
If I ever need to get off Quicken'98, I'd look and see
what's available in open source, such as:
http://cbb.sourceforge.net
I suspect it has NONE of:
- activation
- subscription
- lock-outs due to phone-home screwups
cbb.sourceforge seems to be overloaded and unresponsive
just now. I suspect a lot of people are realizing that
cheap/free/bundled copy of MS Money was no bargain, and
not something to trust with your money.
I use an older version of Quickbooks and it works fine.
What did you replace it with?
yeah it's safe alright. locked up so tight even the owner can't get to it.
> I use an older version of Quickbooks and it works fine.
> What did you replace it with?
I didn't. The need to use it ceased.
I later learned that Intuit had made it impossible for
the end user to update sales and withholding tax tables
(and probably mileage/depreciation as well), forcing
you to subscribe for annual updates.
Anyone who doesn't need those calculations may well be
able to run later versions without subscription (as
long as you don't need critical patches after a year).
And Intuit may have changed the policy, as it annoyed
a lot of QB users. They did remove the Activation from
TurboTax (I heard, I never went back).
Anyone in the market needs to check, and to know what
to ask about - and by all means see if there is some
open source alternative.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.