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QuickBooks and the Vista Operating System What QuickBooks Users Need to Know
By: Jennifer A Thieme
Microsoft plans to release its new Vista operating system to consumers in January 2007. The new operating system is schedule to be released to larger businesses in November 2006.
Although upgrading to Vista is completely optional, QuickBooks users need to understand Vista?s compatibility with QuickBooks, because not all versions of QuickBooks will be compatible with the new operating system.
The only version of QuickBooks that is compatible with Vista is QuickBooks 2007. Intuit announced on October 16, 2007, that it is investigating third-party, aka non-Intuit, workarounds for QuickBooks users who are using versions of QuickBooks earlier than 2007. However, no other details were given. Most importantly: Intuit did not announce any plans to update earlier versions of QuickBooks to be compatible with Vista. Microsoft has been working on Vista for over five years, and a beta of Vista has been available since about July 2005, but Intuit has no plans to update previous years of QuickBooks, not even QuickBooks 2006, which was released in November 2005.
For those wishing to upgrade to Vista, they will also be forced to upgrade to QuickBooks 2007. For those running versions of QuickBooks older than 2007, they should not upgrade to Vista if they don?t want to also upgrade to QuickBooks 2007. Users of QuickBooks 2007 have a choice: they may upgrade to Vista, or they may stay with their current operating system, as QuickBooks 2007 is compatible with both.
At some point, QuickBooks users will need to be aware when purchasing any new software for their computers. If a product is for Vista only, this forces the user to make a decision: keep the product, and upgrade to Vista and to QuickBooks 2007 (and possibly upgrade other software products as well), or don?t keep the product and don?t upgrade.
The Vista operating system is an overhaul of previous Microsoft operating systems. It?s a completely new system, and not an upgrade to Windows XP.
Vista Tidbits:
Jennifer A. Thieme is a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. Visit www.jenniferthieme.com to ask her your questions about QuickBooks. |  |
