If you are an IT consultant you frequently face the situation where one of your clients is missing the CDs for the software they have purchased. They are entitled to use the software that they have purchased, but how do you install it?
Many companies make the software freely available as an online download, others make it difficult.
I had a situation yesterday where the client owned Quickbooks Premier 2010. They had to do a format and reinstall of the operating system on a computer. The Quickbooks CD was missing and a hurried search of the office did not turn it up. They had the book with the license number and the product number.
I called Intuit to get access to the program itself. When I spoke to their representative He told me that to help me with the installation they would have to put me on a service contract as I was out of the warranty help period.
I assured him that no help was needed, just a link to the downloaded software.
He sent me to www.usequickbooks.com/premier2011 where I was able to download the software after I entered the codes from my QB booklet.
“Are you sure that my license codes will work on the 2011 version of the software?”
“Yes”
No. The codes did not work as I started the install. I went to getquickbooks.com/premier2010 and downloaded the software that worked with my codes.
I found this page on the Intuit site that will just let you download any version of Quickbooks going back to 2005 (as of this post).
http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/INF12417
Why not send people to this page in the first place? Now I know about it and hopefully it will help someone else.