Take two asprin and call it a day with SBA

What a headache!!

I had a battle today with the fairly new Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting package.  From an earlier post I mentioned a little development application based on this platform...but that's not what I'm here to barf about today...

So you would think that a logical way to go (speaking about selling this application to companies...which is what I seem to do these days) is to install the trial version (a great 20-use trial, 5 of which get burned just setting it up for the customer) and let them kick the tires.  Then, when they have a smile on their face, purchase a volume license and deploy.

But NO...this is not a clean way to go.  Microsoft made it that you can simply purchase a retail license when you hit the end of your trial and punch in the license key.  That's nice in a one or two license situtation, but if you want volume license, here is a word of advice...

The Problem - the Trial will not go away!!
You would think that an uninstall (complete) of SBA (the trial) and then an install from the Volume License CD (VLCD) would be the answer.  Mostly because the VLCD does not have a license key...it is baked into the install.

So you install from the VLCD on a virgin machine and when you run it, it shows the product key already entered (with '*'s) for you.  Click next and you are done.

So you install from the VLCD on a machine that had (note: HAD since you uninstalled) the trial.  You run the app and it says, "this is a Trial version...wanna buy a license"...No thanks, already have one.

You've done your homework, searched everywhere, contacted Microsoft (up to the point of paying for support) and still no answer.  You've religiously followed the detailed uninstall guide in the Microsoft KB (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897877) ...nothing, it still thinks it's a Trial version.  (By now you are down to 0 uses most likely)

The Answer - Seek and destroy.
Well, when anything really stumps me, it is usually a quick trip to http://www.sysinternals.com.  My favorites, FileMon and RegMon.  Well, FileMon was the hero this time.  I was able to determine that out of all the places that the KB article listed, they forgot one. 

Under \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Small Business Accounting  you will find a pa.dat file.  When I killed this file, all of a sudden when going back into SBA, instead of the "buy a license" screen, I was treated with a activation screen with the license key entered (in '*'s) for me.

Problem solved!!

So, since I saw no other information on this and since (according to Microsoft) SBA is becoming popular, I would think there will be many that might run into this.  In fact, I haven't tried this, but I'm not sure if killing that file will start your 20 uses over again with the trial...I hope to not have to find out.