This post is with reference to how to get stock quotes in excel using the MoneyCentral Stock Quotes Add-in from MSN Money. In this post you will learn about how to make the MSN money Stock Quotes Add-in work in Excel 2010.

Many people have been happily using it with their versions of excel. However, some people complained that they couldn't use it and most of the time it was because they upgraded to Excel 2010.

One of our users, Glenn Farkas, found the solution for how to make the add-in work on excel 2010. We requested him to provide us detailed instructions on how he got it right and he has sent the instructions. I would like to thank Glenn for helping us with this, and am publishing the instructions provided by him below.

Step 1

• In your spreadsheet, enter a stock ticker in all caps and hit enter (use IBM, it doesn't really matter which but I know this works.  you can then enter your portfolio tickers later)
• Hover over the ticker and right click on it.  At the bottom of the pop-up window, click "Additional Cell Actions", then click "Insert refreshable stock price". Note that "Additional Cell Actions" feature is disabled by default. So, you will have to enable it from "Options".
• You get another pop-up window which asks if you want the info in another spreadsheet or the cell adjacent to the ticker.  Choose the cell next to the ticker
• The MSN Money window/ticker info appears with all the preset info for IBM

Step 2

• Go to the Data tab and click on Connections
• In the pop-up window choose Add
• You should see 3 separate MSN Money connections.  Choose the MSN Money Investor Stock Quotes
• From that same window, there should be a "Connection" listed.  Click on the Connection.  Then, on the right side of the window, click on Properties
• From the Connection Properties window, click on the Definition tab.  At the Connection File window, click on Browse to the right and then choose the MSN Money Investor Quotes.  Once you have chosen that, then go to the bottom of the window and click on Parameters.  Parameter will be grayed out until you have a file path in the Connection File window.
• The next pop-up box will give you 3 choices.  Choose the second radio button "Use the Following Value:" and in the window below enter all your portfolio tickers in all caps separated by commas.
• Click OK.  Your spreadsheet should now be populated with all of your tickers. You can then click Ctl+Alt+F5 anytime in the spreadsheet to update the tickers.  You can also just go to the Data Tab and click Refresh All.

If you don't have the add-in, you can download it here.

I hope this helps, and do let us know if you are able to make the add-in work after you follow these instructions.

Note: Since MSN money doesn't support the plugin anymore, for most people, the add-in has stopped working. We would recommend that you make use of alternative methods to get the stock quotes in Excel. Please check our discussion on alternative to MSN Stock Quotes Add-in.