H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + eFile

3 Responses to “H&R Block At Home 2009 Deluxe Federal + eFile”

1. Kylie says:

   January 27, 2010 at 5:59 pm

   Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

   The H&R At Home Deluxe Federal + E-file CD received from Amazon installs quickly enough. On attempting to start the installed program I immediately receive a message saying that At Home is not running on the computer it was originally installed on. That’s silly because this is the only computer I have. But I follow the suggestion to un-install, then re-install the software. I get the same result, At Home won’t start.

   My on-line chat with H&R Support eventually leads to their request to check into Microsoft Update and install any missing “Critical” updates. There are none. But there are some “Important” ones. However, they’re for programs I don’t have (e.g., Office 2003, Server 2005, etc.) or don’t want (e.g., Internet Explorer 8). H&R Support can’t be any more specific about which updates might be necessary and I can’t tell from the explanations of the updates which one(s) might affect At Home’s inability to know where it’s running.

   I’m stuck.

   I’m not going to install 8 updates willy-nilly, hoping one (or more) of them will solve the problem. At Home is obviously checking some internal value somewhere that tells it where it thinks it was installed against some value stored in the bowels of 64-bit Windows Vista, but H&R Support can’t tell me what At Home is looking for.

   So I still have no clue why At Home won’t even start up. Has anyone else stumbled across this problem in 64-bit Vista (w/Service pack 1) and solved it? If not, I’m going to have to return H&R Block At Home (2009) and see if I have any better luck with Turbo-Tax for 2009.

   I’m frustrated because last year I switched from Turbo Tax to H&R Block Tax Cut and found it easy and simple to use. Oh, well, back to Turbo Tax.

   *** Update, Jan 12th, 2010 ***

   An H&R At Home representative contacted me at home (no pun intended!) after reading the above review. He apologized for the failure and said that I had encountered a known problem that wasn’t related to “critical” Vista-64 updates. The problem affects some but not all Vista-64 users. Anyway, nothing I might have done during or as a result of the on-line chat would have solved my problem. He said they have a fix in hand for the problem and that they expect to have it available for download on Jan 15th. All in all, well handled by H&R and a good public relations endeavor. My opinion of them has risen substantially as a result of our conversation.
2. Estrella says:

   January 27, 2010 at 8:40 pm

   I like Taxcut a lot.

   But you have to be very careful when buying it. If you want want to use the program to do your state taxes, be sure to look closely at the box/product to be sure that you are entitled to a free download of the state program. Obviously, the price tends to be lower if the product does not entitle you to the state program for your taxes.
3. Orabella says:

   January 27, 2010 at 10:32 pm

   Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

   Have used Tax Cut in prior years and found it vey simple to use and accurate. The e-file worked with ease. I also liked the no state income tax feature of this edition since Tennesse state income tax is so simple a program is not needed.