Microsoft customers back in the Money

Five days after a server error first shut some Microsoft Money users out of their online accounts, Microsoft issued a workaround that restored access.

On Friday, the software giant posted instructions to its Web site to help customers affected by the blackout to log into their online accounts. The workaround comes after a server glitch shut out some Money customers throughout the week. While members who logged in before or after Monday and Tuesday could access their accounts, some who tried to log in during that period were shut out.

Microsoft would not say how many people were affected, but customers frustrated by the glitch flooded message boards. Many feared that the outage might delete their files. Microsoft denied that any information was lost during the blackout period.

The company also denied that the blackout stemmed from any problems with its Passport sign-in service. It pointed out that other services using Passport, such as Hotmail, have not experienced any problems.

The work-around first instructs users to try to access Money offline without signing on to Passport. Since online features appear throughout Money, users must sign in with their Passport account to gain access to their files. People who don't need Passport to sign in, and gain direct offline access to the software, may be using a version of Money that does not link to the Web, according to a Microsoft representative.

Those who require Passport to get into Money are then instructed to download a software wizard that restores access.

So far, the workaround seems to be working. Message board postings on Friday were more upbeat than the comments made throughout the week.

"I am back in business," one affected user wrote. "Thank you very much for your efforts."

Others suggested new tactics to Microsoft, in hopes of preventing another blackout.

"Perhaps Microsoft needs to rethink the architecture of how Passport interacts with Money," another poster wrote. "Maybe like a secondary password that would allow at least local access in case Passport gets garbled again."

[wrwjpn]

Get it right

When we are talking about my finances, I would expect only top
quality and integrity. That is why I would never ever trust MS
with my finances. They still have a long way to go before I would
consider their products or services as trustworthy. Just their
reply that it couldn't be a problem with Passport because it
didn't affect Hotmail. Are they running Hotmail and Money
services off the same servers? Are Hotmail and Money servers
exactly the same? I think not.

Come on MS!! Isn't it time to own up to your own mistakes and
come clean? Stop trying to blame it on the unknown or if it really
is the unknown then that means you don't have the proper
knowledge of your on systems. That is really a scary thought but
not so impossible.

When will your Trustworthy Initative bear fruit?

What do you expect

when the jettisoned a rock solid OS like FreeBSD
for their convoluted mess that cannot really
withstand high network transaction volumes?