QuickBooks 2008 - Install on Windows Vista

Just as we were finishing up the setup on a new laptop for one of our accounting company clients, Intuit's new QuickBooks 2008 (QB) showed up in the mail.

When we first fire up the setup procedure we are greeted with:

Guided or Expert Install?

We chose the Expert method since we need to see just what is happening.

We now have a number of options that were not present in previous versions of QuickBooks available to us:

Multi-User Host - Standard - Server Install Options

The first option would be used for those who are installing in a peer to peer situation and require more than one user to access the company file.

Keep in mind that larger company files that have not been purged of previous years' data should be setup with a full Gigabit infrastructure. Otherwise reports and other types of operations may take some time to complete.

The second option is the standard stand-alone setup. This is the default method for installing QB on a stand-alone workstation where no shared access would be required.

The third is to install a TSR to serve the company files from a server share on the network. A separate post will cover this.

In this case, we are installing on a system that will only be accessing QB' files via a network share so we will install using option 2.

We are installing QB on a new Acer TravelMate 6592G with a factory install of Windows Vista.

This next step may or may not happen depending on how up to date the workstation is:

Install .NET 1.1 Runtime

Once we have installed .NET, we are warned about the need to close any open windows or programs.

We are then greeted with an entirely new key code page:

License Number and Product Number

For those who obtain their install media via a QuickBooks Support subscription, the proper codes will be in a letter that accompanies the install media.

Once we have our correct codes entered, we were surprised to see the following:

Do you want to use Google Desktop in QuickBooks?

Google Desktop integration with QuickBooks? From the paragraph just above the "More About Privacy" button.

Google Desktop is customized to protect the privacy of your QuickBooks data. Existing users of Google Desktop may want to adjust your preferences to protect your data.

This definitely bears more investigation as we are getting prepared to install QB08 on our accounting systems here in the office.

For now, we will be answering "NO" to that question. We will run through the "Guided Installation" method on a Vista VM with undo disks enabled to see how this question is posed along with any other "surprises" that may appear there.

Once the installation routine has finished:

QuickBooks Installation Complete

We are no longer forced to reboot the system in order to initiate the QBUpdate Agent that runs in the background on the system.

We use the Sample company file to activate QB and to run the update process.

When we go to open the Sample company file we are greeted with:

Warning

You do not have sufficient permissions to the specified folder. ...

Note that the Sample company file is still in the \Program Files\Intuit\ folder and thus the permissions error.

All in all, other than the Google integration (our opinion), QB 2008 runs flawlessly on Windows Vista.

Note that updates will be required:

Update QuickBooks

And, they will require a reboot after the QB restart to install them:

You must restart your systems for the configuration changes made to QuickBooks to take effect.Close [sic] all other applications and click OK to restart now.

Kudos to Intuit for making things right!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

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