Does Microsoft Money run on Windows Vista

The simple answer is yes. I have seen or tried all versions from Money 2000 to Money Plus (Money 2008) on Vista (32 bit), and these all appear to work. In addition I have had reports that Money 2002 & 2007 run correctly on the 64 bit version of Vista (I've not received reports either way for other versions with the 64-bit Vista)

For the most recent version, Money Plus (US users only), Vista is listed in its system requirements (Article 489). For other versions, a matrix of compatible operating systems can be found on Article 526. Because Vista was released after all versions except Money Plus, you will not find it listed on the packaging.

Many users will have Vista Premium or Vista Home Basic. Money is unaffected by these different versions of Vista, as they are from the same code (however there could be differences between 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Vista).

Older versions of Money

You may find that if you have an older versions of Money, you might need to run it in 'compatibility mode'. This should be the first thing to try if you can't get your version running. To run it compatibility mode, see Article 514.

Service pack 1 for Money 2007 (Article 444) was released to address some of the Vista issues with Money 2007 (but see also Article 448). You should automatically receive Money 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) which was released in January 2007 to fix further issues.

If you run Microsoft Money 2005, there is a mandatory update which needs to be installed on first run. There have been known to be problems in the automatic installation of this. If you experience problems with the installation, then to sort this out, you should right click the Microsoft Money program on the Start Menu, and select the 'Run as administrator' option (see image below). This allows the update to install, after which, the program can be run normally (also described in Article 463).



There was also a bug with the download of OFX statements and Money 2005. This should have been fixed when the RTM version of Vista was released (Article 459).

During the Vista beta, there were some issues when trying to open the sample.mny file from Money 2000 (in that it constantly wanted to compact the file), but a clean file appeared to work. There are probably some issues that are lurking out there, but the basic tests appeared okay.

My Usage of Vista and Money

I first tried Money on Beta 2 of Vista in 2006. On the right is a screenshot of Money 2000 on this installation (click on it to see a larger image). Note that Aero wasn't supported on the hardware I used, so it cannot be seen on the image.

I currently run Vista Ultimate, and I have used Money 2006, Money for the Pocket PC 2006, Money Plus and Ultrasoft Money for the Pocket PC. I've not experienced any (major) issues. Just one with the framing of the window.

Thanks to Anthony Brown for some of the information on Money 2005