Quickbooks - How to Regenerate a Damaged "entitlementdatastore.ecml" File

 

Intro:

If you need to wipe a QuickBooks installation of its registration data this article will help. You may also run into this issue if a Windows restore was done.

Fix:

1. Close QuickBooks and the Tool Hub if they are open.

2. Open the entitlement folder based on your QuickBooks version found in the chart below:

• QuickBooks 2007 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v3

• QuickBooks 2008 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v5
• QuickBooks 2009 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v5

• QuickBooks 2010 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v6.0
• QuickBooks 2011 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v6.0
• QuickBooks 2012 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v6.0

• QuickBooks 2013 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2014 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2015 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2016 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2017 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2018 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2019 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2020 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2021 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2022 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2023 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8
• QuickBooks 2024 - C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Entitlement Client\v8

3. Delete or rename "EntitlementDataStore.ecml" to "EntitlementDataStore.ecml.old".

4. Open QuickBooks and load your company file.

5. File the instructions to register the application.

Conclusion:

You can either choose to rename or delete the entitlement file. It's encrypted either way so there's really no sense in hanging on to a bad copy of it if there's an issue. It's not like you can edit it directly.

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QuickBooks 2024 - Fix Missing PDF Component

 

Intro:

This error seems to be one of many that Intuit doesn't care to fix. This applies to Windows 11 Pro and QuickBooks 2024 but I'm sure the issue exists with earlier versions loaded on Windows 11.

This could have been triggered during the initial QuickBooks install but isn't. Upon launching, QuickBooks complains that it doesn't have a PDF writer installed. This component is built into Windows so all we have to do it enable it and we're good to go.

Fix:

1. Right click on "Start" --> Run --> type "control" or "optionalfeatures" to be taken direct to step 4.

2. Select "Programs and Features".

3. Left hand side, click on "Turn Windows features on or off".

4. Enable "Microsoft Print to PDF" and "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" and hit "OK". Wait for the installer to complete and hit "Close".

5. Try launching QuickBooks again. The error should be gone.

Conclusion:

Pretty sure only Microsoft XPS document writer needs to be turned on to remove the error, however turning on "Print to PDF" isn't going to harm anything.

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QuickBooks Desktop 2024 - Fix Elevated Credentials Prompt for Standard Windows Users

 

Intro:

When a standard Windows user attempts to open the QuickBooks application, they are prompted with a QuickBooks generated error that states, "Administrator Permissions Needed" - "This action requires Windows administrator permissions". There's a UAC icon on the continue button. If you press "continue", the following appears:

If you press "No" here, QuickBooks opens, however when you try to open the .QBW (QuickBooks WorkBook) file, it prompts for elevated credentials again and the process repeats.

Problem:

The reason for this is because the "QuickBooks Company File Monitoring Service" is not running. The actual service name is "QBCFMonitorService".

I suspect this has to do with Multi-User Mode because it only occurs on computers that are running this mode of QuickBooks. It's only on the second computer. So the first computer opens QuickBooks and loads the QBW file. The second computer attempts to launch QuickBooks and it fails with the error above.

Fix:

The easy way to ensure this runs on the machine as directed is to create a Task in Windows that calls in a PowerShell script which checks to see if the service is running or not. It will restart the service if it's not running and write the event to a log file. If the service is already running, it will note this event in the log file as well and not attempt to restart the service.

If using an RMM you'll need someway to "Set-ExecutionPolicy" to "bypass" before the script runs or else it will fail. Putting "Sec-ExecutionPolicy" to "bypass" in the script will fail to set this option temporarily ultimately causing the script to fail.

PowerShell Script:

Save the PowerShell script below in the admin's Documents folder as: "C:\Users\Pat\Documents\scripts\QBCFMonitorService\QBCFMonitorService.ps1"

Replace XXXXXX with the account name.

*01.04.24 - Updated script to report time in 12 hour with AM/PM vs 24 hours. Changed "HH:mm:ss" to "hh:mm:ss tt" and added the "tt" to denote AM or PM. The lowercase "hh" denotes 12 hour and the uppercase "HH" denotes 24 hour.

# Set the service name
$serviceName = "QBCFMonitorService"
$logFilePath = "C:\Users\XXXXXX\Documents\Powershell Scripts\QBCFMonitorService\QBCFMonitorService.log"

# Check if the service is stopped
$serviceStatus = Get-Service -Name $serviceName

if ($serviceStatus.Status -eq 'Stopped') {
    # Restart the service
    Restart-Service -Name $serviceName
    $logMessage = "$(Get-Date -Format 'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss tt') - Service $serviceName restarted."
    Write-Host $logMessage
    Add-Content -Path $logFilePath -Value $logMessage
} else {
    $logMessage = "$(Get-Date -Format 'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss tt') - Service $serviceName is already running."
    Write-Host $logMessage
    Add-Content -Path $logFilePath -Value $logMessage
}

Task Scheduler:

(Create a new folder in Task Scheduler for stuff like this to differentiate from standard tasks.)

Create a "New Task" in Task Scheduler with the following settings marked in yellow:

General Tab:

Name:

• Watchdog for QBCFMonitorService

Description:

• Runs periodically. If QBCFMonitorService is not running it will restart it. This allows the user to open QB without needing elevated Windows credentials.

Triggers:

Action Tab:

Action:

• Start a program

Program/Script:

• C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

Add arguments (optional):

• -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Users\Pat\Documents\scripts\QBCFMonitorService\QBCFMonitorService.ps1"

Conditions:

Settings:

Test Task:

Stop the service manually then run the task, it should restart the service and add a line to the log file.

Notes:

Seems I'm not the only one with this issue:

https://www.reddit.com/r/msp/comments/n0iadp/quickbooksmum_not_working/

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QuickBooks Desktop Premier 2024 - User Access Controls

 

Intro:

Needed a way to visualize the user access controls presented in the non-enterprise version of QuickBooks Desktop 2024 for a customer. Roles are only available in QB Desktop Enterprise version.

User Access Controls:

1. Company
2. Users
3. Set Up Users and Roles
4. Enter admin Password
5. Add new user

Side Notes:

If you're looking for the options available to Enterprise users please check out the following links:

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/manage-users/create-manage-roles-quickbooks-desktop-enterprise/L9z3XdBcQ_US_en_US?uid=lozfuvsk

https://www.bza.me/?NLZL15

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QuickBooks 2018 through 2024 - Scheduled Backups Not Working? - Fix

 

Intro:

Let's start by saying this program sucks and support sucks even more. First there's the language disconnect when speaking to tech support and then when you finally do get your problem across to the agent either the phone gets disconnected or they never relay the problem up to the devs.

Scheduled Backups Failing? Let's Fix that:

Should be straight forward, open QB, create a local backup, schedule it, enter your admin credentials, and QB should start making scheduled backups according to the schedule. Yea well their software is shit and hasn't worked properly since 2018. I'm sure it didn't work properly before that either but 2018 is the earliest I've worked with.

If your user is just that, a user, in Windows, log in as them. You will need a admin account for this (we don't want to setup the backup under the user and then two weeks later have them change their Windows password.

1. Schedule your backup in QB, close the workbook and exit QB.
2. Elevate Task Manager and type in your admin credentials.
3. Find the task. It will look something like, "your business name here12345 1234567890".

Try to run it and you'll see the error below:

As an admin edit the task and enable, "Run with highest privileges" on the first page of the task.

Manually run the task again. You won't see the backup box with progress indicator but if you monitor the folder where you told QuickBooks to store your automatic backups you will see a new file with a date and time slightly behind the current time.

Conclusion:

Seriously not a fucking clue why they can't get this backup process right. Intuit if you're reading this, I'd expect a little more value and a fully working program for the money I just spent. $1549.00 That's the Premier Pro base edition marked up $150 from pre 09/31/23 pricing. Prior to that date the base license was $549 and additional licenses up to 5 users was $300/each. That was for QB Premier 2023. They can't even produce a change log of differences nor a justification for the price increase. They're probably trying to annoy the desktop users into jumping ship to the crippled online version.

Now the price for the Desktop 2024 version (which looks identical by the way and seems to function the same way too🙄), is $949/base + $300 for each additional user up to 5 users total.

I guess someone needed to justify their job over there.

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