Bugs and Fixes: Money Messes From Microsoft, Intuit

Do you feel Excedrin headache number 2001 coming on? If you use Microsoft Money or Intuit's Quicken or QuickBooks, you might.

The first snag, identified by bug-tracking firm BugNet, involves a feature in Money for printing wallet-size checks. The program can produce checks that your payees may decide not to accept--if the check is for a very big amount.

Here's what happens: All versions of Money limit the number of characters you can put on the second payment-amount line (where you spell out the dollar amount in words). At Money's default type size (12-point Courier) the limit is 60 characters. Naturally, you'd have to plug in a really long number to reach that limit, but the problem could affect you if you wrote a check to cover a large stock transaction or to make a payoff on your house.

Once you use up the space on this payment line, Money starts printing numbers instead of words. You see the numerals only after you print your check--you can't see the conversion on screen. Some payees may overlook the gibberish, but others may refuse to honor your check.

One way around the limit is to choose a smaller type size before printing. To do so, select File, Printer Setup, choose the Font tab, and then set a point size of 11 or smaller. Check out Microsoft's explanation of this problem.

BugNet also discovered a difficulty with Intuit's Quicken. If you try to transfer your Quicken files to Microsoft Money (any version) and you run into an "illegal operation" message, be careful. The odds are that you have a corrupted Quicken file. A way to fix the snafu is to first pull out each account in the Quicken file by copying and saving each one to a new Quicken Interchange Format (or QIF) file. Then import these QIF files into a new Money file. This will dispose of the corrupted file permanently. For more info, visit Intuit or call the company at 800/952-2558.

The third glitch occurs in QuickBooks 2001: If you use this application and have run into the error message "QBW32 caused an IPF in module APPCORE. DLL," you have a conflict between QuickBooks and your graphics card driver, Intuit says. QuickBooks can't deal with any graphics card driver that supports two monitors at once, and the program won't run.

You can either disable the dual-monitor driver temporarily, or prevent it from loading altogether when you reboot your PC. The workarounds will prevent you from running two monitors, but neither will disable your video card entirely.