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I just installed Wine and I am trying to get Quickbooks Pro 2019 installed.
But I can't figure out Wine and how to use it. This will be our accounting software for quite a while. Ubuntu with the Aardvark is my version.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
But please pretend that I am from Mars when you answer, because I am not the most literate Ubuntu user.

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  • Investigate GnuCash gnucash.org as a substitute for Quickbooks.
    – waltinator
    Oct 19, 2018 at 21:56
  • Would love to but my daughter is taking over my shameful business books and insists on quickbooks. My business advisor concurs.
    – RPVTech
    Oct 19, 2018 at 22:02
  • Please ask your daughter which version and which year of QuickBooks she is using and if she plans to change soon. Once you know, please come back here and click on edit above and to the left, and add that essential information so we can provide a competent answer.
    – K7AAY
    Oct 19, 2018 at 23:50
  • Hey! First of all, I highly recommend you upgrade your Ubuntu version, Aardvark is no longer supported, and the Wine version in it must be very outdated. Second, are you trying to use Wine on its own or are you using some sort of GUI, like playonlinux? Working with Wine can be very hard, especially if you don't use a GUI. Oct 20, 2018 at 0:48
  • Don't have a GUI. Could you suggest the best (better) option.
    – RPVTech
    Oct 20, 2018 at 0:55

1 Answer 1

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QuickBooks Pro Desktop is only occasionally compatible with Wine, and Intuit (whom you paid a lot of money to) has repeatedly refused to support any platform other than genuine Windows.

There is NO alternative way to access data in a QB Company File - the file is encrypted, and only QB has the key. So your QB must be installed on a stable, reliable base system.

Enterprise-critical bookkeeping tasks and database access should not be considered robust or reliable when using Wine - an update to either Ubuntu, Wine, or QuickBooks may break the (unsupported) application and deny you access to your data. That's a hassle you do not need.

Consider instead using QB in a Win 10 Virtual Machine on an Ubuntu Host. It's a well-trod path with community support for every step. It requires slightly heftier hardware...but not much. I've used it for years without any problems. You can update Ubuntu without affecting Windows, and you can update Windows without affecting Ubuntu. You can have QB open in a Win10 Window on your Ubuntu desktop. QB cannot communicate with your Ubuntu applications (unless you write a bridge, not for beginners), but can communicate with other Win10 applications. You can share files between Ubuntu and Win10.

Advice regardless of the solution you choose: Take good notes of all the accounts you create (and their passwords), and of all the software you install, and where you got that software from. And your Windows and QB product keys on paper, of course. The first time you do it, you might make a few mistakes and need to redo. That's not a problem if you keep good notes - a $1 paper notebook is a very wise investment. Use good password practices for your Ubuntu, Windows, and Quickbooks passwords from the start.

QB Backups: From Day 1, you must back up your QB Company File regularly. I backup 2-3 times each month. An inexpensive 2GB USB drive plugged into the machine is excellent insurance in case of a hard drive failure. Everything else you can re-download and re-install from scratch with your notes, but the company data and transactions that you spent months of your life manually inputting cannot be replaced.

Ubuntu, Windows, and QB each have their own learning curves. You won't learn all of it in the first month.

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