Microsoft Money outside the US
Tags: WindowsSunday, 05 October 2008
I've long been a user of Microsoft Money. I've also never lived in the United States. Until around 2005 that wasn't a problem as there were non US (and non Canadian) versions available in places like France, the UK, and even a catch all "international edition" for everywhere else.
That is no longer the case however, which was a shame.
The features I liked about Money included the ability to automatically download share price updates from the internet. Some people also used it to automatically download bank account transactions, but they are clearly a lot more trusting than I am when it comes to submitting my internet banking login details to a black box piece of software that talks to the internet behind the scenes.
So recently this lack of existence of a non-US version created a problem. The share price update functionality in my previous version expired, and couldn't be renewed without upgrading to the latest version.
While the US version of the product was available off sites like Amazon, they wouldn't ship to an address outside the US due to licensing restrictions. Oh bother! The next step was to have a look on Ebay and find some individuals who were less concerned with the finer points of the licensing conditions. There were a bunch of people selling old versions, but tracking down an original version of the current release proved a challenging and somewhat futile pursuit.
With a quick "bollocks to that!", I did some more research to try and find another option. Eventually I did. PC World, via an outsourcing deal with Digital River, offer many software titles including Microsoft Money for purchase globally over the internet. Upon payment of the recommended retail price of the US edition of the software they supply a download link and it is job done.