.02 more on this.

I have a 90 year old customer trying to maintain LOCAL accounts which he has maintained for decades.  These accounts have NO PAYROLL and NO ADDITIONAL SERVICES, but Intuit is working hard to make his job virtually impossible.

In just the last two years:

1) He was forced to upgrade to a more recent version because his client did (fine, client may have had reasons, but it's also likely Intuit forced the upgrade by disabling something).

2) When creating files with the new version, he was suddenly and without reason REQUIRED to set a password for a new company file which ONLY HE WOULD EVER access on ONE LOCAL PC.

3) Another year later, he goes back to open files he created the previous year and suddenly Intuit REQUIRES not only the password he didn't want, but now he must login to an online account . . . TO ACCESS A LOCAL FILE which uses NO additional services!

This 90 year old man used to simply double-click to open a client's company file.  Now he must perform two additional AND POINTLESS steps to do exactly the same work.

4) Worse yet, the additional steps don't even work.  When logging in, Intuit has thus far forced him to to get a code by email . . .  and again by phone EVERY TIME.   He never asked for 2FA.  Why is Intuit requiring 3FA? (answer: cheap offshore developers only know specs, they don't know how to write good code).

As so many others have said, adding all these additional steps provides ZERO SECURITY VALUE to a desktop user.  What Intuit has done is make sure this super nice 90 man has multiple IRRELEVANT and USELESS tasks he must complete before opening a LOCAL FILE with Quickbooks DESKTOP.

Want to guess what my advice is to a thousand or so other tech support clients?  Don't dare upgrade Quickbooks unless you have no other option.  INTUIT DOESN'T CARE.  This thread being either ignored or misunderstood by Intuit is proof.