File access Problems in Money may be related to Controlled Folder Access.
Errors include: “Money cannot locate” your file, or “cannot open” or “read-only” when it is not, or “write protected disk” when it is not, or “cannot find file” when you have done a save as in an application like Excel.
Check out the setting for Controlled Folder Access which is a feature of Window Defender. You will find it in Settings/Virus & Threat protection/Ransomware Protection. You can try just try temporarily turning it off, restart Money and see if it now works. If not then this is not your problem, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
If it now works then read on. This feature exists to “Protect your files against threats like ransomware….” or so say Microsoft. It sounds like a really good thing, but the key question is what files will it protect and what apps will it allow to change files. I added the Money.exe as an allowed app in the settings for Controlled Folder Access and it worked fine.
BleepingComputer “has tested Controlled Folder Access against ransomware samples that include the Asasin Locky variant, the x1881 CryptoMix variant, the Comrade HiddenTear variant, and the Wyvern BTCWare variant. The good news is that Controlled Folder Access achieved what it was designed to do; successfully block ransomware from encrypting files located in protected folders. The bad news is that while your protected folders are safe, other non-protected folders will still be encrypted, ransom notes will still be displayed, and other behaviour will still continue.”
The more of your different folders you protect, the more you are going to have to “program” it to let Apps through. I personally gave up when I found it had blocked Office365, specifically Excel. Most advice seems to be to turn it OFF which is a real shame. You might want to persevere; turn it on, add all the folders that you want to protect and then, every time you get a failure, go to the Ransomware Protection settings page, add your chosen app by finding its .exe in program files and allowing it. Then restart the app that was failing. You can search for “Controlled Folder Access” and find more information. The difficulty is that the failure mode is not consistent and not obvious. It presents as some odd file access problem and not as a Controlled Folder Access issue. All it needs to be user friendly is a consistent error message and a link to the right setting page.