QB Auto Update

For the last several years, Quickbooks regularly has problems turning off automatic upgrades. With single user systems installed on a workstation, this is not a problem. However, in a network environment (where each client must be upgraded at the same time), or on a Windows Terminal Server where the user may not have permission to restart the server, it is better for IT to perform this manually, on a schedule (monthly seems to be appropriate).

If your QB install is in automatic update mode, and you can not turn it off (Help | Update Quickbooks Desktop), you can do this manually.

  1. Close all copies of Intuit Quickbooks
  2. go to C:\ProgramData\Intuit\NameOfQBInstall\Components\QBUpdate
    1. NOTE: ProgramData (no space) does not show up in normal listings, so you must manually enter the path
    2. NameOfQBInstall depends on the version of Quickbooks installed. An example would be QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 24.0. Recommend you go into c:\ProgramData\Intuit and see what is there.
  3. Find the file qbchan.dat
    1. Open with Notepad (right click, Open With)
    2. About line 4, there is the entry 
      BackgroundEnabled=1
    3. Change the 1 to 0
    4. Save the file
  4. Open Quickbooks
  5. Help | Update Quickbooks Desktop
  6. Verify Automatic Updates is off