Turn off automatic updates

[cantankrs]

Hi Steven,

That's what you wrote previously in this thread. 

Yes, Updates are important to 'consider' installing.

Yes, MYOB evolution has in the not too distant past, been causing customers to need to, 'by a certain date', upgrade (the Cloud version, at least) to implement corrections to behavioural problems and add features it didn't have in earlier iterations.

Wasn't that enough of a prompt to customers to get on and schedule and apply those changes?

As @kathryng1  indicated, MYOB has two different customer groups - single users and multi-users.  This forcing of updates is possibly fine for the former group but irritating and more costly to the latter group who by their larger size have to 'schedule' changes to their infrastructure rather than drop everything at any inconvenient moment.

Who does MYOB corporate want to earn revenue from - single users or a mix of single and multi-users?

I digress for a moment :- If you want a bit more revenue from the bigger small businesses then consider developing a mid-range product that works better, has faster development, and has fast, direct, effective, MYOB support.   I know most people don't want to pay more but MYOB is a tool in their business and tools are necessary and we have to factor the cost of any tool into the pricing of our goods and services.

There's Good, Quick and Cheap services in business but a successful business can only offer any two of those three at the same time.  Some MYOB customers would prefer more of the Good and Quick than the Cheap.

The question is what will MYOB do, from now moving forward, about improving this recent automatic update rollout behaviour.?  Especially for its multi-user customers.

Thanks

Alex

[Steven_M]

Hi @cantankrs 

Thank you for your additional feedback on this topic.

To my knowledge, there are no immediate plans to implement a user system that would stop users from installing upgrades or updating company files. However, I have registered and passed on your comments as we do move forward with the automatic installations of AccountRight.

[kathryng1]

Thank you Steven.   Can I ask that you keep us posted on this.

[BusTechPartners]

Hello,

Not being able to control updates at the user end is very bad practice. Whenever we get forced into a MYOB update, it breaks several of our other tools that work with MYOB and leads to days of downtime. We prefer to plan upgrades over the weekend and not have all our integrations fail during our work week.

We also test everything on our network before rolling out. This is standard security practice.

Currently if we only have a person get the update, and accidently update the database, then noone can use the file as the server is no up to the right version. Then we need IT to get involved. 

Then IT need to contact all the third party vendors, get updates from them (Hopefully) and then reinstall everything. Then they need to editthe XML files for the API tools to allow integrations and test it all.

One little update takes us down for days. This is not acceptable.

Please put forward my comments. There needs to be a "Administrator" level approval for updates.

At least a method to postpone an update for a week. Not asking to avoid updates, asking to schedule them when the business is ready.

MYOB is meant to enable business, not kill it stone dead for a few days.

[gavin12345]

Hi @BusTechPartners @Vinous @kathryng1 @cantankrs 

Unfortunately MYOB are not going to change their policy just because users want them to. Now just as there are ways to stop Windows 10 automatic updates, there are also ways to stop MYOB automatic updates, or at least work around them.

I keep using AR2020.1 even though MYOB has updated itself to AR2021.4

Take a look where MYOB installs itself - in a folder called AccountRight in a path like this:

C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Programs\MYOB\AccountRight

Inside that folder is another folder called app-2021.300.244119 or similar - this contains the files that run MYOB - AR2021.3. 

Copy this folder app-2021.300.244119 and paste under C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Programs\MYOB\ and rename it to AccountRight 2021.3

Delete your desktop shortcut and create a new shortcut to HuxleyApplication.exe inside the new folder.

From this point your shortcut will run AR2021.3 even though MYOB Updates to AR2021.4 or .5 etc

When you are ready to upgrade, repeat the above and create a folder for AccountRight 2021.4 etc and change the shortcut to the next version.

Its a bit of mucking around, perhaps discuss with your IT person. It gives you some control over updating - FYI you will need to do this for all users who access the file, to prevent one of them upgrading the company file.

Caveats - not sure if this will have any unintended consequences - I have not experienced any. My files are offline though. Test and see if this works for you.

Regards

Gavin

[abbycvw]

The upgrade is shocking!!! I find it disgusting that the user doesn't have the right to not upgrade!!! 

Will defantly be looking fgor another software to use!!! 

[Steven_M]

Hi @abbycvw 

This thread is referring to the AccountRight upgrade and automatic updates. The updates for this product are now delivered automatically for the PC Edition of the software. Server Edition updates are still required to be completed by the user. However, do note that this will be receiving automatic updates later this year so you will be delaying the inevitable.

In terms of the recent updates, while there were some minor changes to the AccountRight 2021.4 version there were no major changes to the software. However, if you are experiencing an error with that version I would recommend starting a new thread on this Forum so we can investigate further. 

[BusTechPartners]

So this means my option is to move to another product. Thanks for the clarification. 

I will also need to start advising my many MYOB clients to also look to an alternative.

We use the MYOB API and hook in third party apps and every time MYOB force an update, it breaks our company for a day or more and many of our clients. This is unacceptable and also breaks our security.

All updates are to be reviewed by our IT team including Microsoft updates.

The downtime in staffs ability to process is too large a risk.

[gbroadbridge]

Yes, I did exactly that and migrated Premier to another platform at 30 June

Dumb decision by MYOB

[JasonE]

The Automatic Updates of MYOB Standard are a costly nightmare.

When I install software as 2021.3 it is my expectation that that version remains on the system.

When MYOB silently upgrades in the background to 2021.4 it caused a big problem!

When next opening MYOB via the icon, my administrator, was presented with a 'do you want to upgrade company file to 2021.4 OR stay on 2021.3 ? dialog".  Naturally, one is interested in making an invoice and not on such a confusing message and so automatically clicks on the 2021.4.

The software, then rather than checking whether we had a subscription, goes ahead and upgrades the file from that moment on making the data inaccessible for the future.

Fortunately, we had a backup of a 2021.3 company file, could uninstall MYOB software 2021.5 (at this stage) and go back to 2021.3; and thus discover what was going on.

MYOB, updating software where it is not compatible with the customer's company file version or subscription is completely wrong.   You have failed to take into account all of the possible software use cases; and you have caused significant business interruption.

As a user of MYOB for over 23 years; I have to say that this 'confirm company file mechanism' has never provided value or worked for us (unnecessary!); and now when this new auto-update starts to lose our time and data it makes me wonder about the company ethics.