I use Microsoft Money 2006 to track our household finances. There is no particular reason for choosing Money over Quicken, except that I have a friend who works for Mr. Softie and sends me a copy every few years.
Microsoft offers a free download of Money 2007, which can be used for evaluate the software for a period of three months (Note to Intuit marketing folks: If you allow people to try your software before they buy, maybe you will be able to increase your sales). I downloaded and installed the trial version to see if there are any new features worth having. Turns out that apart from a new budget tracker there is absolutely no reason to upgrade.
It also appears that Microsoft still hasn’t gotten the hang of creating user-friendly software. For instance, to try out 2007, Microsoft recommends that users uninstall the earlier installed version from their computer. I didn’t follow their recommendation and of course, when I removed the trial version, 2006 does not work anymore. It was a bit of a nuisance installing 2006 all over again.
Bottom line: If you have an old version of Money, it might make sense to upgrade to the latest version. I used the 2002 version for many years before upgrading to 2006 last year mainly because stock prices were not being updated correctly. Users with newer versions of the software can safely skip the upgrade.
