I use Quickbooks for my company, and am currently running Premier 2012 on a desktop that is equally as old.

There's actually a good reason for this oddity. This particular machine contains customer information and is not connected to the internet. It is housed within a safe designed for computers, and I'm the only one with access. I take the privacy of my customers very seriously.

The old machine is starting to give me trouble, and I'm beginning to shop for a replacement. It's then that I discover that Quickbooks doesn't appear to offer much in the way of replacement software that doesn't involve the machine having an internet connection. Instead of selling the program, they now want an ongoing monthly subscription. Hence the problem.

It appears that they may offer an unconnected desktop version for a Mac. Somebody else suggest that if I wished to purchase another machine with Windows I could locate and purchase an old stock Quickbooks software package (I believe 2019 was the last year).

Anybody with any experience here? Any suggestions?

I can't address your specific upgrade requirement directly, however I will make a few suggestions.

1) Make sure you have a good backup of your financial data in as many formats and on as many different kinds of media as you can envision. By this I mean use your OS's backup solution, and also the export capability of your application software onto both an external hard drive and thumb drives, (and tape drives and floppies if you system supports them). I'd say network server too, but it seems like you have chosen against that option for security requirements, however it isn't too tough to set up a private file server for this purpose. This because whatever you end up with, you want to be prepared to move your data to that platform and application suite. If your application software offers multiple export format options, use them all.

2) Start researching alternatives to your application software with the goal of finding something that is more likely to have some longevity. Ot sounds like MS has already abandoned your use case as a supported environment. MS has a long history of steering their customers into what works best for them (they are far from alone in this strategic mindset). Perhaps selecting an application publisher that is not the same entity as the OS publisher might provide more long-term options. Buzzwords such as "cross platform" and "industry standard data formats" might be useful in selecting an alternative.

3) Seek out and join a community of others that are in your situation. For a long time now, it has been the case that the best support you can find is from other users of a software product, not the vendor, or a third party provider, even if you pay them for it. Part of this being a successful endeavor is to strive to give back to this community as best you can, much as we operate here at SF.

4) Don't put this off, the situation is unlikely to get better on its own. And when you do decide on a strategic direction, realize that it won't last forever either, and eventually, you will have to do this again. So operate from the start with an eye to what's next, and set things up to reflect this.

You have my sympathy, I have been in upgrade hell many more times than I would have chosen. But it is usually possible to find a path out of the darkness, sometimes into a even better situation.

They still make a desktop version.

They are trying to sell all versions by subscriptions or increase the price for non subscriptions.

Mot sure what happens with the desktop version if you don't renew.

Have a few copies of you backup.

The transformation of data to a newer version was a one way trip when I did it.

You can buy older versions on Ebay.

Some are pirate versions and some are genuine from verified resellers.

I bought last two versions off Ebay.

windows updates killed my old versions.

quote:

windows updates killed my old versions.

Benefit of having no internet connection.

Do you have the original installation disc for Quickbooks? I am running a QB 2006 version on a Win10 machine. It can be done.

QuickBooks for Mac is totally different than QB for Windows. I'd buy or build a new computer and install QB Premier 2012 on it. Do you have the product key for QB Premier 2012?

Or you could just virtualize your old machine.

I run four different sets of Quickbooks for Desktop 2020 books simultaneously. The machine is a 2014 Dell Optiplex, i5-3570, 16gb ram, 1TB SSD, Windows 10 Pro. Not the latest and greatest by any means. I run one instance of Quickbooks on the host, and three instances in three virtual machines. The hypervisor is included with Windows Pro, and it does a fantastic job. When I use Quickbooks in a virtual machine, I cannot really tell the difference in speed between using the virtual machine and the native instance. Quickbooks feels the same on both.

If you really don't want to give Intuit any more money, you could upgrade to newer hardware and just run your older computer in the virtual machine with no real changes to your operation. It would be way less expensive and upsetting to your workflow than switching to QB for Mac.

I'm a twenty year Mac user, so if I'm recommending a Windows solution, it's not from bias.

Or, another way to examine the problem: is it feasible to fix the PC? You say it is having some issues… what issues? Perhaps a bit of new hardware can fix your issues.

And I’m intrigued by your “safe built for a computer”. Was this a commercially available product or something you put together yourself?

I will follow up on my previous post. Thanks to sigcrazy7 for reminding me of what I wanted to add.

The way that most system administrators these days address the whole upgrade mess is to run old OS versions and the applications that resist a logical upgrade strategy is through virtualization. Set up a VM host and run your legacy apps and OS's in virtual machines on the host. This eliminates hardware support as a factor in the upgrade equation, and provides much greater flexibility. I have a client who is still running Windows NT in a VM to support an in-house developed application where the original development team is no longer available to port it to a newer OS, and nobody can be found that can understand the original code. Another ran an accounting application in a VM for decades after the publisher dropped support for the latest MS OS.

Setting up a VM host is no more difficult than any OS installation task althought there are a few new skills to learn and a certain amount of research must be accomplished to pick the most relevant hypervisor and hardware. Most off-the-shelf systems sold these days are perfectly capable VM hosts.

So, since you are faced with an unavoidable upgrade task, go that extra step and convert to a virtualization solution. There is a reason it has become such a popular trend.

If I had a client with the same requirements I would advise them to:
1. Replace the bad hardware with similar working specifications
or
(preferred)
2. New current hardware
3. New current OS
4. Upgrade to latest QB version
5. Fully update online (connected to Internet)
6. Unplug from Internet
7. Transfer/migrate QB Data
8. Continue to operate QB ~ offline.
(optionally)
9. Periodically, download QB updates manually on another computer then manually transfer with USB drive and manually install
10. MS Updates a temp Internet connection might be necessary.
Note: Updates may or may not be necessary


https://quickbooks.intuit.com/...connection/00/205001

If you are happy with QB Premier 2012, you can just continue with it. You would only need to get an upgrade if you are needing it for payroll, which you aren't.

We also run QB2009 on Win10 machines with current updates. So not only can it be done, you need no special IT skills to do it.

Intuit has long since providing support for it. But, it just keeps on working.

I'm using QuickBooks Pro 2013 (Windows version), running on a VMware Fusion virtual machine, on my Mac computers. I turned off all the QuickBooks internet update stuff.

For Payroll, I use the Medlin payroll and just transfer the data to QuickBooks.

Medlin is a heck of a lot less expensive than Intuit's payroll stuff, a fraction of the cost, and support (rarely needed) is much more user-friendly.

Maybe another approach altogether? For a machine like yours in a vault, not connecting to the Internet, there's nothing for you in more recent OSes.

I assume your 2012-vintage machine's running Windows 7? If so, have you considered replicating the old machine with new hardware, and just installing the old software onto the replacement machine? That would avoid the sidegrade/downgrade to Windows 10, and keep your 2012 software running.

You can still, as we stand here today, get new product that supports Windows 7, if you're careful and selective. I did just that last year - had a new machine built with the most recent Intel processor that supports Win7, and a motherboard that supported that processor, and it runs like a dream. You just need to pick a processor-motherboard combo that supports Windows 7 and either build it yourself or have a shop near you assemble it for you.

Doing it this way, I avoided having to 'upgrade' to newer versions and/or buy into the 'subscription' models for all my running-just-fine-on-Win7-thanks software. Saved me thousands of dollars in avoided-software-upgrade costs.

Buy a new computer, run the old machine in a virtual machine on the new one. Windows had/has this functionality. I did it once about 10 years ago for an old computer that had tax software data from prior years. I don't remember how or what I did exactly, but I believe I cloned the drive from the old computer to a virtual machine on the new one.