Quicken?

[wenglish98027]

Quicken for Windows is notorious for display bugs, and having lurked here for a few days it's becoming apparent that PhotoShop doesn't work right on the Surface Pro 3 due to the high DPI of the display. What I'm not sure about is how pervasive (among other programs) this problem is.

Is anyone using Quicken on a Surface Pro 3? If so, how well does it work (in particular the 2014 version which seems worse than Intuit's usual low bar for quality)?

If not, any thoughts on how bad it is likely to be (perhaps from someone who has used Quicken on Windows 7 and also uses the Surface Pro 3 for other purposes)?

I've been using my PC less and less, using an Android tablet instead, and had hoped eventually to ditch a desktop PC altogether. However, I don't see a viable tablet-based (or cloud-based) alternative to Quicken (curse you Microsoft for dropping Money) coming along any time soon.

Thanks ... Mike

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum Mike

All I can say is I agree with you on all counts where Quicken is concerned. But I'm afraid I haven't seen a decent alternative either.

 

[bertopl]

Quicken scales horribly out of the box on an SP1. fonts were tiny in the main screen and huge in the register. I would imagine the SP3 experience to be similar. I disabled scaling on Quicken and it's usable enough. like what's already been mentioned, not a lot of alternatives and I have many years of data in Quicken.

 

[wenglish98027]

Thanks leeshor & bertopl. Sorry about the delay responding, I've been away for the last week and am only just now getting back to the "non-critical" stuff :-D

 

[dniezby]

Quicken, unless you're using it for business, is old news. If you're using it to manage your finances, Mint is far better. I don't have to enter any transactions because it links up with my bank to enter them automatically. Then I just classify the spending with categories. You could also use Credit Karma which is almost exactly the same thing only it gives you your credit score(s). Both are free and supported by partnerships.

Mint is available in the Windows store. I would link it but I don't know how to do that yet. As for Credit Karma, they've available on the web. I haven't' checked if they have an app yet for Windows.

 

[wenglish98027]

Does Mint allow you to enter transactions manually these days? It didn't before or after they sold out to Intuit.

Granted it's probably been a couple of years since I tried it. Has it improved significantly over that time?

 

[Sol]

I installed Quicken 2014 on my Surface Pro 3. While it doesn't scale as well as on my desktop, it's certainly very usable, especially with a mouse. The font for register entries is large enough to be very legible, but the font for the list of accounts is tiny. I will try to attach a screenshot so you can get an idea of what it looks like.

 

[dniezby]

Does Mint allow you to enter transactions manually these days? It didn't before or after they sold out to Intuit.

Granted it's probably been a couple of years since I tried it. Has it improved significantly over that time?

Yes, you CAN enter transactions manually. Though, I don't. Unless there is something with a tip. It does everything I need for managing my family's finances.

 

[Joette]

To make the account list readable, and the menu bar across the top look as if it should, it's a simple matter of right clicking on the Quicken icon, going to properties, clicking on the compatibility tab. The make sure the "run this program in compatibility mode" is checked for windows 8; then down lower make sure there is a check in the box for " disable display scaling on high high DPI settings". After I did this, the menu across the top was as it should be, and the account list on the side was a comparable size to the register when opened. I

I was going to take the Surface Pro 3 back if I hadn't been able to get Quicken workable as I use it daily for my own personal finances, and for our neighborhood finances, so I would be lost without it.

 

[Joette]

Another way to get Quicken to size itself right, is as follows. I just found this on another forum somewhere.

If you make sure that there is a check in the "disable display settings..." under properties when you right click on the Quicken icon, it will make the account list a larger size, but still smaller than on a regular computer. If you want it larger yet, you can click on :"view" on the menu bar, then click on use large fonts, and it will make them larger still, without being huge, but it makes the registers HUGE.

So..., open one of the registers, and click on the gear icon in the top right corner and go to register preferences, and change the font to ariel, or some other font of your choosing until you find one you like that makes the register the correct size.

I found that the default font for the registers in Quicken just won't size down enough when I bring the account list up to a readable size, but a lot of the other fonts will work, making Quicken look like it did on my old laptop.