Fix for Slow or Freezing Quicken 2017 for Windows

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Is your version of Quicken running slowly? Does it freeze or hang every time you try to use it? Does Quicken act sluggish when you add new transactions?

Read below for tips and fixes on how to get Quicken running at top speed.

Fix 1: Quicken 2017 for Windows slowness and freezing

Some Quicken 2017 for Windows users have been reporting slowness or freezing when opening or using Quicken. If you have been experiencing this, please continue reading below for a possible solution. This only applies to Quicken for Windows, so if you’re using Quicken for Mac, you can safely ignore this fix.

The Quicken team is working on a permanent solution to this problem, but here is a temporary fix that may help solve the problem for you.

1. Open Quicken
2. Go to Edit -> Preferences
3. Click on “Startup” in the list on the left side
4. Underneath “Startup Location”, if it says “Tips & Tutorials”, change it to anything other than “Tips & Tutorials”.
5. Close and reopen Quicken

The slowness and freezing should no longer occur.

Quicken 2017 slow freezing
Quicken 2017 Windows Bug Fix Freezing Slow



If you are unable to update your Quicken Preferences due to the slowness of the program:

1. Quit Quicken
2. Disconnect from the Internet.
3. Re-open Quicken, and you should be able to follow the steps above.
4. Reconnect to the Internet.

This problem is occurring because of a bug on the Tips & Tutorials tab. Some users Quicken preferences are set so the Tips & Tutorials tab is the startup page, which is causing Quicken to run slowly or freeze. The temporary workaround listed above should help solve the slow Quicken problem for these users.

Quicken Alternatives

If you’re looking for an alternative to Quicken, these are my recommendations:

1. For a desktop-based program (Windows or Mac), try Moneyspire. Read my review on it here.

2. If you want to try a cloud-based alternative to Quicken, try Personal Capital. It’s completely free.

24 thoughts on “Fix for Slow or Freezing Quicken 2017 for Windows

  • Switching to a two line display in my frequently used accounts improved performance dramatically. Unfortunately on a big computer display the two line display is nearly as easy to read.

  • The slowness of the quicken 2017 really bugs the hell of me. I tried numerous “solutions” and reloading programs but to no avail. The only thing that seems to work is if I created another user in my windows 10 and my quicken works like normal (before the slowdown) speed.

  • Mine was super slow as well and I tried all the fixes I could find. Then I stumbled upon the fix I needed. I am running windows 10 and for some reason quicken was running in vista service pack 2 compatibility mode. Right click the quicken icon, select properties and look at the compatibility tab and see if it is correct. I unchecked the box since there was no windows 10 selection and it fixed the slowness.

  • It is not true that Quicken Archive can be set to include only transactions after a given date in the new Current Data File. Both the Current Data File and the Archive Data File contain the same data. The text box at the bottom, labeled “This archive data file will contain transactions up to and including” is DEACTIVATED. I cannot change the date from 12/31/2017.

    • John,

      I don’t know why the box would be deactivated for you. It is working just fine for me. Which version of Quicken are you using? One suggestion is to try doing a file validate and repair first. Perhaps there is something corrupted in your data file that is preventing the archive functionality from working. To do this, go to File -> File Operations -> Validate and Repair.

  • Thanks so much, Brian! I find it irritating to have my info on two lines because you can’t see nearly as many transactions at once on a laptop, but I am willing to deal with it if Quicken will run faster. This worked. Thank you!

  • One thing I just read on another forum which actually solved my issue is this:
    I was having an issue with slowness in one particular account. The rest were all fine. Even accounts with FAR more transactions were fine.

    The issue had to do with whether I was displaying registry info on a single line or on two lines. In the slow account, I had it set (somehow) to display on only one line. A quick “Ctrl 2” toggles between the one line / two line display option. And, it immediately solved the issue. I switched it back and forth a couple of times, restarted quicken, etc. to verify that the solution held, and it did. Hope this helps someone else!

  • I gave MoneySpire a shot. The import from Quicken left me with wildly wrong balances in all accounts. Too hard to reconcile.

    If I were starting out new, I’d pick something other than Quicken. But I have yet to find something to replace Quicken that maintains all my historical data. 🙁

    • When you import your accounts, depending on how much historical data you have, you may need to reconcile each account with the current balance. Moneyspire can only work with the information it’s given and that information you imported from Quicken may not include the opening account balances. The most important thing is that all the transactions are there. Then simply editing each account to provide an opening balance or reconciling each account with the current balance should resolve any discrepancies.

      • Thanks for the thought. All my accounts have appropriate starting balances in Quicken. I’ve looked through the discrepancies with Moneyspire, and they are far too numerous (and increase with time) to attempt fixing.

        My guess is that Moneyspire is simply overwhelmed by my 25 years of Quicken data.

  • Same boat as the other guys. Quicken has been slow, balky and “freeze” for years and seems to get worse every time they improve it. I am looking for a viable alternative.

    • You can check out my review of Moneyspire here. It’s one of the best Quicken alternatives I’ve seen.

      Another thing you can do to help speed up Quicken is make a year-end copy every year and archive previous years’ data. This will help keep your Quicken file from getting too big, which can slow Quicken down considerably. The downside to this approach is you no longer have access to older transactions and reports including those transactions. I typically keep the previous two years of transactions in my current Quicken file, so I can still run reports including data from the previous two years, but my Quicken file doesn’t get so large.

      • Quicken 2017 does not create year end copies for me. Both the new and archive files are identical. Wondering if the split from Intuit is the end of Quicken and the beginning of a nightmare for myself?

        • When you create a year-end copy, you can choose whether to keep all transactions in the copy, or to only keep those up to a date you specify. You can find this option under File -> File Operations -> Year-end Copy.

  • I have had the same slowness when reconciling or downloading from bank websites. The 2016 version was better.

  • And if you notice, I have 32 GB of memory, and even after Windows have eaten away all its caching and other memory for background apps, I still start quicken with 20+ GB of FREE memory.

  • Quicken 2017 startup is intermittently very slow for me too. I do not have my startup location set to Tips and Tutorials.

  • Thanks for tip. Unfortunately, my setting was already on ‘home’ and not ‘tips and tutorials’. So therefore, this “new and improved” version of quicken that I was forced to purchase (since I was previously using 2014) is unbearably slow, particularly whenever downloading transactions. This is such a mess and would have been so much better and less of a problem if we could have just continued using the version that was already working.

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