I bought my first copy of quicken in '93 (it was promoted/suggested in either an accounting or finance class in university) so that I could monitor my spending, and chart out my net worth over time.  By the year 2000, by projecting the net worth line to age 55, I realized that I would only have a net worth of ~$200,000 by the time I was 55 if I had kept on the route I was going (debt, interest payments, superfluous purchases, etc etc), which changed the course of my entire life.  At this point, I own 3 houses, and a small biotech business that brings in ~2 million gross per year (hence the need for using quickbooks!), and a debt level of zero.  I say this not to be a braggart, but to explain that I seriously owe the whole change of life to Anthony Robbins books, and Quicken.  I have never had anything but nice things to say of the product and company, until literally last night, when I was given ~4 days notice that my software had been "upgraded", and that to ensure it doesn't get "upgraded" again, I'd best fork over some cash.  It's not the cost I'm upset with, it's the manner in which you went about it.  

In the real world, offering improvements that make upgrading worthwhile is how you sell a product, not wrecking something that WAS functioning just because you know it's difficult for people to learn new software, and even harder migrating company files, especially for the casual user.

So I appreciate the help and the steps to get the file manually, but now I'm wary that it might get "upgraded" again, and because I don't want to read any more "well you should upgrade to the latest version of quickbooks, for a low low monthly fee that's almost only pennies a day!" I've spent the day working on building spreadsheets to try and do what quickbooks does, at least in regards to tax and salary payments.  All this after taking the time and effort to learn quickbooks (instead of simply accounting).  I just feel betrayed and angry....so while I do appreciate the help, save that upselling for someone else.  Quite literally I'm now an "ex" customer, it's just a matter of how long it will take me to migrate. So best of luck with this new business model.