Microsoft Money

[91TTZ]

I just got MS Money, hoping to find an easy to use program to manage my money.

Well, what I got was a typical MS product- awkward interface, bloated beyond belief, and tons of useless "features".

Seriously, how can people use this crap? It looks nice, but the user interface is extremely awkward. There are tabs at the top that you click to navigate, and there are only 8 categories, but then for some reason MS felt the need to give it the "forward" and "back" buttons that you'd find on IE. If you use the program you'd see that these buttons are completely redundant, since there are only 8 tabs to choose from on top. In addition, they put a menu on the left side, which only contains the same 8 options that the tabs up top give you. You gain nothing by having them up top AND on the side, except clutter, of course.

Also, each page seems to incorporate links to parts of another page which should stay exclusively on the other page. By crosslinking everything they make it even more cluttered and awkward to use. If you'd just keep everything separated and orderly, it would make more sense and have a clean logical layout.

It sort of reminds me of the program called Fitday that I use to manage my food intake, only MS Money deals with dollars instead of calories. Only with Fitday, the whole program is logical, neat, and orderly, while with MS Money it's a nice looking but disorderly mess. Oh, and Fitday's 10 megs compared to 150 megs for MS Money. It's like comparing Foxit with Adobe Acrobat- one does everything you need in a one quick, easy to use package, while the other seems to do the same thing the other does but has a ton of unneeded and is 20 times as large.

 

[njmodi]

Money's interface, IMHO, has gotten progressively worse over the years. Money 2003 > Money 2004 > Money 2005. The 2005 version's UI is horrible.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: njmodi
Money's interface, IMHO, has gotten progressively worse over the years. Money 2003 > Money 2004 > Money 2005. The 2005 version's UI is horrible.

That seems to be a trend. I guess companies feel the need to "innovate" and add new features so people buy the new version, but if they aren't careful about it, they can clutter and bloat the program, making it harder to use.

You know they're doing the wrong thing when the version from 5 years ago did everything you needed it to, looked better, and was easier to use. You don't need 300 buttons on your front page.

If Microsoft made cars, by the 3rd generation the dashboard would look an airline cockpit-

"The NEW Microsoft Corolla- now with more features!" (and buttons. and switches. and dials. and sliders. and knobs)

 

[EyeMWing]

Because it was free with teh laptop.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: njmodi
Money's interface, IMHO, has gotten progressively worse over the years. Money 2003 > Money 2004 > Money 2005. The 2005 version's UI is horrible.

That seems to be a trend. I guess companies feel the need to "innovate" and add new features so people buy the new version, but if they aren't careful about it, they can clutter and bloat the program, making it harder to use.

Adobe is unaffected.

 

[archcommus]

I think its interface is terrific and very easy to use. The tabs make perfect sense, the links within the pages are only there for convenience and do not need to be used. And yes, back and forward ARE useful. I go to my checking account, then straight to my savings, then check out my CC. I quickly tap the "back" thumb button on my mouse and I'm back at my savings.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: archcommus
I think its interface is terrific and very easy to use. The tabs make perfect sense, the links within the pages are only there for convenience and do not need to be used. And yes, back and forward ARE useful. I go to my checking account, then straight to my savings, then check out my CC. I quickly tap the "back" thumb button on my mouse and I'm back at my savings.

Then why do there need to be the same exact tabs on both the top and side?

The interface sucks.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: njmodi
Money's interface, IMHO, has gotten progressively worse over the years. Money 2003 > Money 2004 > Money 2005. The 2005 version's UI is horrible.

That seems to be a trend. I guess companies feel the need to "innovate" and add new features so people buy the new version, but if they aren't careful about it, they can clutter and bloat the program, making it harder to use.

Adobe is unaffected.

The newest Acrobat Reader is over 30 megs. It's more bloated than ever. Its bloat made me abandon it and switch to Foxit. Does the same thing and is only 1.2 megs.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: njmodi
Money's interface, IMHO, has gotten progressively worse over the years. Money 2003 > Money 2004 > Money 2005. The 2005 version's UI is horrible.

That seems to be a trend. I guess companies feel the need to "innovate" and add new features so people buy the new version, but if they aren't careful about it, they can clutter and bloat the program, making it harder to use.

Adobe is unaffected.

The newest Acrobat is over 30 megs. It's more bloated than ever.

I mean the whole "pressure to add features"

 

[sygyzy]

I like it and use it daily. I agree that previous versions were nicer. I am still impressed with the features each day.

 

[11thHour]

I've been using quicken for almost 10 years and have used the latest Money trials, and imo both have been putting out crap lately.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: archcommus
I think its interface is terrific and very easy to use. The tabs make perfect sense, the links within the pages are only there for convenience and do not need to be used. And yes, back and forward ARE useful. I go to my checking account, then straight to my savings, then check out my CC. I quickly tap the "back" thumb button on my mouse and I'm back at my savings.

Then why do there need to be the same exact tabs on both the top and side?

The interface sucks.

Oooh, they put the same button in two places! That instantly equals crap!

Control Panel is accessible from both the Start Menu and My Computer. Man, the Windows GUI is SH!T.

 

[CrimsonChaos]

I tend to feel that Quicken and MS Money are both decent programs, but neither one is great -- they both have some problems.

My general advice has always been (at least since 2002 when I started using them), if you want a basic and easy-to-use program without all the bells and whistles, get Quicken. If you want something more advanced and involved, but difficult to navigate due to a poorly devised interface, get MS Money.

 

[11thHour]

Originally posted by: CrimsonChaos
I tend to feel that Quicken and MS Money are both decent programs, but neither one is great -- they both have some problems.

My general advice has always been (at least since 2002 when I started using them), if you want a basic and easy-to-use program without all the bells and whistles, get Quicken. If you want something more advanced and involved, but difficult to navigate due to a poorly devised interface, get MS Money.

If you want the best report customizing, use quicken. Although they haven't improved them in freakin years.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: CrimsonChaos
I tend to feel that Quicken and MS Money are both decent programs, but neither one is great -- they both have some problems.

My general advice has always been (at least since 2002 when I started using them), if you want a basic and easy-to-use program without all the bells and whistles, get Quicken. If you want something more advanced and involved, but difficult to navigate due to a poorly devised interface, get MS Money.

I tried Quicken once and didn't even want to bother learning the interface it was such a mess. I much prefer Money's.

 

[EKKC]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: njmodi
Money's interface, IMHO, has gotten progressively worse over the years. Money 2003 > Money 2004 > Money 2005. The 2005 version's UI is horrible.

That seems to be a trend. I guess companies feel the need to "innovate" and add new features so people buy the new version, but if they aren't careful about it, they can clutter and bloat the program, making it harder to use.

Adobe is unaffected.

The newest Acrobat Reader is over 30 megs. It's more bloated than ever. Its bloat made me abandon it and switch to Foxit. Does the same thing and is only 1.2 megs.

acrobat is so stupid. the point of the reader is that its fast to download for everyone so if a person doesnt have a pdf reader he can download it within minutes

i remember version 4 reader was like 3-4mb, then it was 7mb, then version 6 like 10-12 mb. now its bigger than the older versions of acrobat write.

god what are they thinking