Microsoft Money Glitch Fixed

Here's an update from PC World Contributing Editor Stuart J. Johnston to PC World's recent report about some Microsoft Money 2004 users being denied access to their own financial records because of a software glitch:

As promised, Microsoft posted a patch early this morning for some Money 2004 users who were inadvertently locked out of their financial data, even though it was stored on their local hard disks. Affected users can use a Money Key Wizard on the MSN Money site. Users issued a collective sigh of relief after nearly a week of being unable to access their financial information.

"It was a very easy fix from the users point of view. All we had to do was click a link on a Web page to a "Money Key Wizard", the next screen we got was telling use that we could now logon to our files and see all our information," says Kenneth T. Van Wie II, an Atlanta computer consultant who finally became so frustrated that he complained to PC World after the problem persisted for several days. Microsoft caused the problem by making changes to a server or servers on Sunday night, July 25, or early Monday. The problem created a disconnect between Microsoft's Passport authentication technology and Money's file encryption keys. Microsoft insists the glitch is not in Passport, which continued to work for other services such as Hotmail.

Money 2004 users who use any of the program's online options, such as bill pay and e-banking, got an error message if they tried to log into their accounts from Monday afternoon until Tuesday morning. The message said their sign-in names were incorrect or not recognized. Subsequently, they were locked out of their data for the rest of the week, until Microsoft was able to implement a patch.

There never was a question that Microsoft was serious about fixing the problem as quickly as possible, notes Rob Enderle, principal analyst at technology consulting firm The Enderle Group. But Microsoft's poor handling of the situation initially created a small public relations nightmare. The company did not immediately publicly notify customers of the situation, and then tried to put a spin on it by pointing out the "good news" that nobody--including customers--could get break into the financial data. "When you?ve got millions of people using your financial program, it only takes a few to create a bad impression of the product," Enderle says.

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