Oh God. Kill me now. (Quicken 98 Y2K clusterfuck)

May 30, 2007 8:21 PM

[BoringAsFuckFilter] How to retrospectively correct a Y2K problem in a Quicken 98 file? Staggeringly dull details follow.

My father-in-law has been using Quicken 98 / Windows 98 to track his (considerable) finances for the last 10 years. He ignored all suggestions to upgrade saying 'it works fine as it is'. Don't ask. Just don't ask.

We finally (it took a fucking DECADE) persuaded him to switch to a Mac. However, when I tried to import his accounts from Quicken 98 into Mac Quicken 2007 as a .QIF file, I discovered to my amazement that Quicken 98 was NOT Y2K savvy.

As a result, every transaction after Jan 1 2000 is recorded as 1900 onwards.

Eg a transaction in 2002 is recorded as 1902. Because Quicken 98 just displays that as MM/DD/02 he never realised there was a problem, and his capital gains returns worked out fine as far as I can tell.

Mac Quicken spots that there is an error, but dates the transactions as the date of import.

What I need to do is take his Quicken 98 data, select every transaction from Jan 1 2000 to the present day, and change the date from 19xx to 20xx.

Is there actually a way to do this?

If not, how do you retrospectively correct this problem?

[possible solution that has occurred to me -- somehow export the data as CSV and do a regex search/replace, then reimport. But how?]

posted by sweet mister to computers & internet (4 comments total)

You could always call tech support.


This problem was probably fixed in either the 1999 or 2000 version. They would have included some sort of converter to fix this problem. If you could somehow acquire one of these versions of the software and 'update' the windows box (assuming you still have it) you might be able to take advantage of it.

Frankly, i'm surprised that there wasnt an option to import the data the right way, even from such an old version. It's not like it would have saved much space on the install disc.


(And if he insists on keeping the next computer for a decade, do make sure he keeps a backup - even macs can have a hard drive fail. )
posted by itheearl at 9:15 PM on May 30, 2007

I'm pretty sure my mom was/may still be using Quicken 98 for the Mac, and I think I remember downloading and installing a Y2K patch for her. Maybe there's a similar patch for Win Quicken 98, and passing your data through an updated version would allow you to move it to the Mac?

So, what itheearl said, only you may not even need Q99 or 2000.
posted by epugachev at 10:35 PM on May 30, 2007

Um...?
posted by rhizome at 10:56 PM on May 30, 2007

QIF files are basically text, and every date will just show up as a line formatted like

D6/12/03

Try using a text editor to change one of those to something like

D6/12/2003

and re-import; if that works, you can do a regex search and replace to fix the lot.
posted by flabdablet at 1:32 AM on May 31, 2007