Today I upgraded my laptop to Windows 8.1 Pro. By ‘upgrade’ I actually mean backed up, formatted & installed Windows cleanly. It went surprisingly well and was pretty fast. The only Microsoft glitch I had were some updated that failed to install until after I rebooted, then away they went (though they gave me no indication that a restart was needed).
I’d been running QuickBooks Pro 2012/2013, so it was time to install the new version – Reckon Accounts Pro 2013. And this is where I went around in circles.
The product is supported on Windows 8, but the installation failed with “Error 1920. Service QuickBooks Database manager Service (QBCFMonitorService) failed to start.” The installation would then roll back.
This kb was hopeless:http://www.quicken.com.au/kb/issue_view.asp?ID=4906
And another kb was hopeless that told me to delete a bunch of folders (that hadn’t been created) and try it again. It mentioned that my installation was having trouble connecting to the company database file, which made no sense seeing as I’d pick the stand-alone client option (as our company file is on our file server, no my laptop).
My laptop had no anti-virus software on it (yet) and no previous versions of QuickBooks.
Unfortunately the error is a bit generic and had to search for, because 1920 is the standard windows error code for any service failing to start.
But the solution actually wasn’t that complicated after all. Compatibility mode!
Here’s what worked:
Browse to the contents of the DVD and find the autorun.exe file. If your ‘file extensions are hidden’, you’ll see a few autorun files listed, but only one of them will say Application in the type column:
Right click that file & choose Properties. Then put the tick on to run in Compatibility mode as Windows 7:
Click OK and run the autorun file. My installation then completed successfully, without any errors.
So far I haven’t needed to run the program in compatibility mode, just the installation.
And there you have it. After my lost productivity/time to figure this one out, I hope it saves somebody else! It’s just a shame that solutions like this aren’t easy to find, especially in the software maker’s own knowledge base.
-SCuffy