Location of the Money file in Windows Vista

Vista has some special issues with the placement of your Money file, and this can transpire into your file not being updated, or even worse, deleted. This is not a Money problem as such, but is caused by the strict rules that Vista has for file locations.

In previous versions of Windows, the location was less important. If one goes back quite a number of versions ago (back into the '90s), the Money file could be located in the program directory, desktop, C:\ drive, My Documents area... lots of choices and people used any one of these.

Historically, when you upgrade, the Money file stays in place, so can end up in one of these locations in Vista.

Vista has very strong views about "good" places to keep data. If you put a file in a location that Vista thinks you shouldn't use, it can, without warning, create a transient file .tmp, allow you to make changes, but when you close Money, it will delete the tmp file and you lose all your updates. You may also find that Money doesn't even run, unless you're logged in as an administrator.

To fix this, you need to move your money file to a place where you have full rights - A good place is \Users\UserName\Documents. A bad place is Program Files\Microsoft Money, as this is within a hierarchy that data files are not expected.

The first time you start Money, right clicking on the icon or .exe and choose "Run As Administrator".

Thanks to Bob Peel, MVP, for the majority of this solution