Thanks to the following post by Geoff King I finally managed to install Quicken 2004 onto my Windows 8.1 computer: The steps I took to run Quicken 2004 on Windows7 Professional Solved – Windows 7 Help Forums.
I used the third set of instructions titled ‘Successful Installation into native Windows 7’ as my guide – and what follows here is an almost word-for-word duplication but based on my additional experience on Windows 8.1 (essentially, my experience did not differ greatly if at all, but a couple of the warnings and caveats did not occur for me, so I wanted to concentrate on what worked for me)
- Before installing Quicken, I copied the complete set of Quicken installation files from the Quicken product disc on to a new folder on my C: drive.
- I then changed the properties of the setup.exe program within this folder by ticking “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and selecting ‘Windows XP (Service Pack 3)’ and ticked “Run this program as an administrator”.
- I ran setup.exe and prevented Quicken from loading at the end of the installation by de-selecting that option from the installation dialogue.
- Quicken got installed in ‘c:\Program Files (x86)’. Several sources of information about installing this tool say you need to download dlls files from Windows XP named mfc70.dll, msvcr70.dll and msvcp70.dll, but I found the files were already present;
- I set up a shortcut on the desktop pointing to C:\Program Files(x86)\Quicken\qw.exe and pinned this to the TaskBar and to the Start menu – I set up both to be run in compatibility mode for ”Windows XP (Service Pack 3)”, and also ‘Run as Administrator’ in the Compatibility options tab.
In my experience: Not running as administrator allowed the application to run and work to open old files, but attempting to run the backup just seemed to stall the software; it became unresponsive and did nothing (outputting no errors).
I did not experience the issues discussed by the original poster about messages like “Quicken is not currently the application configured for handling Web Connect data..” so if you see those errors you may need to refer to the original post.
Hopefully this post will help someone like me install the software – and just in case you are wondering why anyone would still be using 10-year-old software there are two answers: a) it still does everything I need, and b) Intuit stopped supporting UK customers of Quicken in … you guessed it… 2004
UPDATE 14/02/2017: In previous months I have successfully been running Quicken 2004 on Windows 10 Pro x64 using the above procedure; though with one additional caveat; attempting to backup using Quicken just seems to hang the executable; you just need to remember to cancel every time the program suggests you create a backup. As I have other backup mechanisms for the files, this does not seem overly risky to me.
UPDATE 13/05/2024: I have now managed to repeat this process on Windows 11, with a couple of wrinkles that may be interesting. In essence, the process followed above seemed to run ok, but the first execution of the app crashed after selecting the option to open an existing data file on disk!
I tried re-running the executable, and this time selected the option to create a file: it also failed, but did not crash, complaining that it could not open the file! However, on this occasion the executable was still running, and I tried opening my real QDF file and … it worked! After the first successful run, it seems a configuration file QW.cfg is written, presumably containing the default data file name to open at start. I’ve only been using it for a few minutes now, but the usual issues of being prompted to allow it to run in Administrator mode, and backup hanging still seem to apply.
I found the only issue was the initial “wizard” that tries to open your Quicken file for you. If you are transferring to a new computer, just copy your Quicken data files over. After installing Quicken 2004, rather than opening the program and trying to go through the startup, just navigate to your Quicken data file and open it. It will open the Quicken program directly into the data file. Then regular open File dialog will work if you have another file or company.
Thanks, that worked fine for me 🙂
I found this worked perfectly for me with one small tweak.
Rather than having a Quicken 2004 CD, I downloaded the installation exe file from Intuit (http://support.intuit.co.uk/quickbooks/en-gb/iq/Manuals-and-Guides/Reinstall-or-reactivate-Quicken/HOW15857.html). If I changed the compatibility of the exe to Win XP and ran as an administrator, it worked perfectly.
Cheers for the tips.
Hi – I am delighted to see that Quicken 2004 XG UK version works on Windows 8. Unfortunately, my original installation disk shattered (over-enthusiastic cupboard packing) and although I have a Windows 8 laptop, and a working Quicken version with years of data on a Windows 7 machine, I don’t have an installation disk. I can’t find the UK files to download – only the US version which does not run my data. I would be happy to upgrade …but as you know, Intuit have not provided a path from the UK version to the US version.
Do you have any suggestions?
Hi Celia,
I bought a software disc from ebay – to be honest I am not convinced it was completely legitimate – but what else to do?
Excellent! I had exactly the same problem and this solved it perfectly.
Incidentally (for Celia) I have a spare copy of Quicken 2004 – I thought I had lost mine and bought another off ebay, then found the old one. So email me if you’d like a copy at a discount.
Thanks for this advice. I found it worked as well for Windows 10 Pro (64 bit).
Wonderful advice from ksb. I used this to install Quicken 2004 on to my laptop which has just been upgraded to Windows 10. Wanted to see if it would work before upgrading my main desktop computer as I would be lost without my Quicken. Carried out all the instructions – run as administrator etc etc and all seems to work fine EXCEPT…. can’t get it to back up my files! When I try, the programme just freezes and I have to go to Ctrl,Alt Del to shut it down. Any advice as to how to solve this problem would be appreciated.
Thanks so much for sharing this. It made getting my father up and running on a new Windows 10 PC a lot more painless!
I have managed to install Quicken 2004 on Win 10 on my PC by installing the aforementioned dll’s however it won’t accept the key code. I still have my copy running on my laptop under XP. Do I have to uninstall it from my Laptop or is there a way to run it of both machines?
I am having a problem running QuickBooks 2004 on my new Win 10 Pro laptop. Previously some years back I had managed to install it on a laptop running Win 7 Enterprise after initially installing it on an XP machine. Like other users it does all I want it to do and do not wish to ‘upgrade’ to latest versions which do not have the same functionality and require a regular subscription!
I can load the basic program OK, but in order to Restore my company backup file, QuickBooks needs to be Updated from the original version on the installation disk. Trying to run the update program for it results in errors as clearly Intuit don’t support that ancient version anymore. Is it possible to get these update files anywhere or a QuickBooks version that I could import my Company data to?
I have installed Quicken premier house 2005 on win8.1, the data is not printed on the invoice only the format. HP4500 K710. In windows all applications are printed well. I appreciate your help.
Sorry Jose; I don’t know what could cause that.