One of the reasons blogging has been light over the weekend is that I recently purchased a new hard drive and was unable to transfer the contents of the old one automatically. This meant that a good chunk of the weekend was spent re-installing a gazillion software applications, including Windows XP Pro (plus the umpteen downloadable upgrades that have been released since October 2001), Office 2000, TurboTax, and countless others. I totally expected to have to the Microsoft applications to tell me my product had already been registered with “another” computer, and to offer an 800 number to call if I disagreed. I expected that minor annoyance, and given their quick response time even at odd hours, it is a relatively minor annoyance. But even that minor annoyance did not materialize. Apparently, both XP Pro and Office 2000 were smart enough to recognize that I was only porting their software to a new hard drive, not attempting to install a pirated copy on someone else’s computer. So was every other application I reinstalled. Every other application, that is, except TurboTax.

When I originally installed TurboTax, it gave me a rather weird warning stating that if I intended to print out my final tax return from another computer, I sure as hell better not install it on this one. I found the warning a bit annoying, since I don’t anticipate inputting all of my tax-related information in one sitting, and would rather like to be able to input some of it from my wife’s computer. But no matter, both computers are in the same house, so I’ll deal. Then when it came time to re-install the product on my own computer, TurboTax gave me a dialog box that stated, in effect, “You can only use this on one computer, and you’ve already registered it with a ‘computer’ that no longer exists. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!” It then offered me two options: (1) buy a second license for “only” $29.95 or (2) install a “free” trial version and pay up later if I end up actually using the software.

Conspicuously absent from the above dialog box was option (3), namely a phone number to call in the event that TurboTax screwed up. I found that number by telling TurboTax I’d be thrilled to buy a second license for the privilege of using one copy on the same computer that I’d originally installed it on, but would rather purchase that license by talking to a human being. So I called that number, and was told by the machine that they only take calls during business hours. In other words, the general rules is that if you have time to talk to them, they don’t have time to talk to you.

Lucky for me, this all happened over MLK weekend, giving me one whole “business day” for Intuit that wasn’t also a “business day” for me. After answering a few irrelevant questions on their voice prompting system and holding for a while, I finally got a live human being on the phone. I explained what had happened, and she took down a series of registration-style questions. She then told me that everything in their system had been re-set, and that I could now activate the software: by uninstalling it, and then re-installing it! She then ended the call, and I did what she said, only to get the same “You can only use this on one computer … nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!” message all over again.

So I called the number yet again, hoping that the third one would be a charm. It was – I finally got someone competent enough to know to generate a new product key, which she gave to me and instructed me to input – after uninstalling and reinstalling the software yet again. So now, I actually have a working copy of TurboTax, and won’t have to go through this rigamarole again unless I (1) add any new hardware to my computer, (2) remove any existing hardware from my computer, (3) install or uninstall any software that the Intuit programmers were not thinking about when they added this dreadful authentication bugfeature, (4) sneeze on my computer, or (5) do anything else between now and April 15, other than completing my tax return. Kewl.

Aside from the pathetic implementation, I’m really not clear on what Intuit hopes to accomplish by prohibiting licensed users from installing their software on more than one computer. This is not like Microsoft’s OS, where two copies actually get you the benefit of being able to do twice as much (i.e., run two Windows-based computers at once). In an age where many families have more than one computer under a single roof, tax software that refuses to install on more than one computer makes about as much sense as a “smart book” that remembers that you read Chapters 1-3 in the living room, and automagically becomes unusable when you attempt to read Chapter 4 in the bedroom (or worse, in the same living room, after you rearrange the furniture). Whatever they are attempting to accomplish, they seem to think that preventing you from making two copies is more important than convincing you to buy one copy in the first place. I certainly would not have bought the software if I had known about this abysmal feature. OK, I lied, given the stack of discounts and rebates I got, I probably would have bought their crap under almost any circumstances. But unless they offer you a really sweet deal, as Amazon did in my case, consider Tax Cut or some other product instead. [I'm assuming, and hoping against hope, that TaxCut doesn't contain the same dreadful bugfeature that TurboTax does.] If you have bought TurboTax already, be sure to give them a piece of your mind.

Apparently, a lot of other suckers individuals who bought TurboTax feel the same way that I do. Next year, my business is Tax Cut’s to lose.