Running Microsoft Money 2005 UK under Windows Vista

So now Windows Vista and Office 2007 are here, I've been upgrading to the RTM build on my home machines over the weekend. One little foible I've found is with running the UK edition of Microsoft Money 2005 under Windows Vista.

Once Microsoft Money is installed and you open your previous money file, it will sit there for a while attempting to compact your money file, then fall over in a heap. There is an update which Money needs, but you can't install it if you can't run it. This KB describes the process in more detail.

The workaround, it turns out, is relatively simple. However the symptoms above give no indication of the problem directly. What you need to do is turn off UAC (User Account Control).

Click "Start/Control Panel"
Click "User Accounts"
Click "User Accounts (again)"
Click "Turn User Account control on or off"

uac

Reboot the machine

Now you can follow the KB I linked to above to use the sample money file to update.

PLEASE: Now please repeat the above steps to turn UAC back on again and reboot. This is really important and I sincerely recommend you run with UAC turned on.

Now you can open you old Money file as normal again.
Hope this helps someone
Cheers,
John.