Kiplinger’s Simply Money & Windows 7 @ MoneyMusings.com

Posted by Michael • June 7, 2010

Ready for a trip back in time? If so, grab a copy of Kiplinger’s Simply Money. And get ready to see 1995 all over again.

I reviewed Simply Money back in 2006 after receiving a free copy in the mail. The program takes you back, for sure. If you’re looking for financial-software simplicity — and don’t give a flip how it looks on your computer screen — then Simply Money is your huckleberry.

However, there may now be an issue for those folks who use Windows 7. As noted by reader Dick, via email:

I found your article on the subject through Google. I’ve used this software since 1993 (latest version is 2.08, 1995) and have found it to be most useful. I just (inadvertently) moved up to a 64-bit Dell desktop running Windows 7 and the software will not load (even though it was fine through Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and XP). Do you know of any patch or fix that will let me continue to run my old friend? I’d really hate to move to Quicken or one of those other packages with the unnecessary bells and whistles.

Well, if we’re to believe what we read at SimplyMedia.com, Simply Money doesn’t appear to play well with 64-bit systems. They write that a new version/patch is in the works…

[Simply Money] Works on Vista up to 32 Bit. 64 Bit Vista not stable enough yet. Stay tuned for that improvement from Microsoft–and then from us with Simply Money to be compatible with their 64 bit Vista.

I’m not sure exactly when 64-bit Vista hit the ground, but it’s been a while. And now we have 64-bit Windows 7 out there … and still (apparently) no fix for Kiplinger’s Simply Money to make it usable on such systems. The same site has a small tech support page for Simply Money, but alas, no answers are to be found there, either.

In any case, Simply Money still deserves a place in my list of Quicken alternatives, but for those of you who are using 64-bit operating systems, you may (for now) wish to look elsewhere.

11 Responses to "Simply Money and Windows 7" ...

On July 5, 2010 @ 1:45 pm,
Joe wrote:

#1

If you right click the exe file you will see a compatibility tab click it and see if the program can be run in a different operating system mode.

Joe
On July 11, 2010 @ 12:17 pm,
Lou wrote:

#2

I have been using this product for many years. Since there has never been a migration path for it, I’ve been fortunate to see it run until WIN 7 64 bit. I have it running on a WIN 7 32 bit machine without problems. My new laptop came with WIN 7 Home Premium 64 bit and SM would install, but refuse to start. Being very hard headed, I upgraded to WIN 7 Professional and installed Virtual PC and Windows XP mode. The processor which my laptop has does not support virtualization, but fortunately there is an update which allows non virtualization hardware to use these features. I can attest to the fact that SM will run in this environment.
On October 30, 2010 @ 4:59 pm,
Charles wrote:

#3

I get SM to run on Windows 7 64 bit using Virtual PC and Windows XP mode. However, how do I restore all my data instead of starting from scratch? I’m confused about the file system when using Windows XP mode.
On November 6, 2010 @ 3:31 pm,
Lou wrote:

#4

The easiest way to reatore it is to use the Backup function on the machine you currently use SM on to a USB drive, then restore from the USB drive to the W7 machine.
On December 23, 2011 @ 5:00 pm,
Izzy Fromm wrote:

#5

Been using using Simply Money for many years–lost it when I changed computers—does anyone know how I can obtain a CD for it ?

Thanks,

Izzy Fromm
On December 25, 2011 @ 8:55 am,
Alvan Judson wrote:

#6

Izzy, Just go to http://www.simplymedia.com/customer/product.php?productid=120080&cat=0&page=1#
It’ll cost $4.99
On January 30, 2012 @ 3:40 pm,
Ted Barden wrote:

#7

Does anybody know where I can buy a copy of Simply Money 2 ?
On June 8, 2012 @ 11:31 pm,
alvan judson wrote:

#8

I upgraded my Win 7 home premium to win 7 professional but, even though I’m now armed with virtual PC and XP mode (on which my simply money happily ran on my old computer) I am unable to load simply money for “lack of administrator rights..error 1925″ (even though I am the administrator of my machine). Someone posted that I can go to the command prompt as administrator and install SM that way. Can anyone tell me the exact syntax I need to run the “.msi” installation file at the correct directory of my command prompt. Thanks in advance.
On June 11, 2012 @ 2:51 pm,
Tom Skidmore wrote:

#9

Are you freshly installing Simply Money from the XP mode window? The program must be installed to the virtual drive used by Windows XP mode. I re-installed Simply Money while in XP mode and it worked fine.
On June 11, 2012 @ 11:06 pm,
alvan judson wrote:

#10

Thanks for the reply, Tom. I downloaded SM to the windows 7 professional hard drive (C:) before I downloaded virtual pc and xp mode. Is there a way of transferring the zip file (or the msi) to that part of the C drive used by virtual pc. My XP mode seems to work fine on the already installed software such as Windows Media Player.
On February 6, 2013 @ 7:17 pm,
Charles Klink wrote:

#11

I’m using Simply Money on a virtual machine using VMWare operating with Windows XP (my machine is running Windows 7 64bit).

It was running fine until recently. When I try to add a new transaction, Simply Money has an error and wants to close. I get the following message: CASMONEY caused a General Protection Fault in module CASM2DB.DLL at 0012:4AAC.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

What other alternatives out there are similar in use to Simply Money?

TIA for any help.

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