QuickBooks 2006 not supported on Windows Vista

I received a courtesy e-mail from Intuit today regarding QuickBooks. Apparently there is a conflict that exists between older versions of QuickBooks (through 2006) and Microsoft's latest Windows Vista® operating system. The e-mail wasn't clear about what extent the conflict changed the QuickBooks experience, just that users may be "adversely affected" if they actually try to run QuickBooks on Vista.

-->  LIMITED USE....

Their Windows Vista Resource Center explains that certain QuickBooks versions will run in Vista, but only under a user account with local administrator privileges, and only in Windows XP compatibility mode. The specific versions affected include Enterprise 6.0, Point of Sale versions, and QuickBooks Services, to name a few. A complete list is hosted on their Vista compatibility page. Anyone using these versions on Vista should make note that they are unsupported on the Vista OS, and that if you run into a problem, you might receive support for known issues only.

QuickBooks 2007 does not have this problem because it is, according to Intuit, "built to run on the new Windows Vista operating system." Because QuickBooks 2007 supports Windows Vista, Intuit is encouraging anybody eyeballing the new system to also grab QuickBooks 2007 to arrive at a supported configuration.

Intuit makes no mention about patching older versions of QuickBooks to add support for the Vista platform, in spite of having patched QuickBooks 2004 and 2005 to add support for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 in December, 2006 (see Internet Explorer 7 Resource Center).

What does this mean for business? It means that if you plan on upgrading to Vista or adding a Vista machine to your bookkeeping system, then you will have to include a license for QuickBooks 2007 in your budget if you intend to run a supported configuration. Intuit offers 12 months of free telephone support regarding installation, upgrades, error resolution, and defects (see Free Phone Support for details). Whether or not they will honor this offer for Vista users not using QuickBooks 2007 is not made clear anywhere on their website. To be clear, the only products supported on Vista are QuickBooks 2007 Simple Start, Pro, and Premier, as well as Enterprise 7.0 and new or updated versions of their other applications and services.

Additionally, since QuickBooks performs irreversible modifications the company file during an upgrade, you must purchase and install a 2007 license on each machine that will access your company file. See QuickBooks 2007 Network Installation Guide for details.

Complete OS support for QuickBooks 2005, 2006, and 2007 is detailed in the QuickBooks Knowledge Base.

UPDATE: More detailed talk on QuickBooks and Vista are available in my next entry, Notes on QuickBooks 2006 and Vista compatibility.

Comments

[Basic Bookkeeping]

I hope this problem of Intuit in Vista will be fixed real soon because many small business owners who are users of the said programs are greatly affected.

[Kevin]

After a lot of fiddling, I was able to get Quickbooks 2005 to work on Windows Vista. Here are the steps I took; your mileage may vary; I'm posting this on several sites in the hopes of saving others the headaches I went through!

1) Uninstall whatever version of Flash you currently have.
2) Uninstall whatever version of Microsoft .NET framework you currently have.
3) Reboot
4) Unpack the Quickbooks installation files
5) Within the Quickbooks installation files you'll see a folder called THIRDPARTY, and in that folder you'll see another one called DOTNET11. Within the DOTNET11 folder you'll see the executable dotnetfx.exe Run that file to install the Microsoft .NET framework 1.1 (which Quickbooks needs).
6) Reboot
7) Install Quickbooks; the installation process likes to have Flash 7 available so it can show you a bunch of promo videos, but if Flash isn't installed on your computer (and it won't be if you've followed number 1 above), the installation still runs fine, and you simply don't get the promo videos.
8) Run Quickbooks and download and install the needed updates.

Caveats:
1) I haven't yet re-installed Flash; I doubt that doing so will affect Quickbooks as it only appears to want Flash for the install process.
2) I haven't yet installed an upgraded version of Microsoft .NET; I have no idea whether doing so will harm QuickBooks. For now I'll stick with Microsoft .NET 1.1 and will only install a later version if I absolutely have to.