Quicken Elite & Windows Vista

Tuesday 30th January, 2007

As you may be aware, Microsoft releases its latest operating system Windows Vista to the general public today. Any new computer purchased from today is likely to come with Windows Vista installed on it. Changes introduced in Windows Vista can cause compatibility issues with some software.

After extensive testing, we have identified some issues with Quicken Elite Central running under Windows Vista. These issues have been fixed and are currently being tested. We expect to release an update to Quicken Elite Central resolving these issues early next week. A number of issues experienced by users of Windows Terminal Server have also been addressed in this release.

There are two remaining known issues with the release which are currently outside Quicken Elite’s control:

1. Microsoft is not, on a default installation of Windows Vista, including support for the help system used by the Quicken Elite suite of products. Microsoft has previously indicated that they will have a version of the help system for Windows Vista available for download from their website by the time Vista is released. Until this is made available you will not be able to access the help for any of the Quicken Elite products. Quicken Elite will give details of how to download this from Microsoft when it becomes available.

2. The ATO have advised that the current Cisco VPN client software required by all ELS tax software packages to lodge returns electronically is not compatible with Windows Vista. At this stage no solution to the problem has been provided by Cisco or the ATO. Until this is resolved you will not be able to lodge returns electronically via ELS from a Windows Vista computer.

   Please note that this issue will affect ALL tax software providers, not just Quicken Elite, as all are required to use the same third-party Cisco VPN client software to provide the required security when lodging tax returns electronically to the ATO.

   Until this issue is resolved by the ATO and Cisco, you will be able to prepare returns on a Windows Vista machine, but will have to lodge from a non-Vista computer or lodge by paper.