Finale is Dead - You Must Switch to Dorico

[JESimmons]

There's Overture. Which I've used for years
https://sonicscores.com/overture/

[Grumpikins]

I feel lucky that I have held onto install disks for programs that I bought many years ago. I have finale 2000 on my computer. It works fine, although I like the previous version better. I refuse updates and registration. I would suggest tracking down old install CDs and a computer whiz to hack the key.

Sent from my SM-S367VL using Tapatalk

[bloke]

If the "most updated" version (assuming it is the best version...??) can be moved over to a hard drive (yes? no?) and it has to run on a certain OS, could a replacement laptop be partitioned with its new OS and the Finale-compatible OS (as I've seen sites where legacy OS's can be downloaded)...and then install the program from the hard drive where it is stored?

bloke "who asks stupid questions out of ignorance"

[Kirley]

It’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t sell it. It seems that with that many dedicated users, including myself, there’s a pretty significant amount of money being left on the table by just ending it. I can’t imagine that whatever deal they’ve made with Dorico comes anywhere close to what they could get by selling it.

[BramJ]

I assume the software checks in with a server occasionally (or at install time at least) with a server to validate the licensing?
unfortunately it is hard to own a piece of software these days, even if you paid a lot of money for it

It can always happen that a software company goes out of business or decides to stop with certain software, but the only good way to handle that is to remove the licensing from the software or even better, release the code. To advice users to move to the software of a competitor? damn... I wonder what Dorico paid them

I can only recommend not to move to Dorico, that would only support this idiotic action by MakeMusic.
Save all you have to PDF and export to MusicXML format (at least the most important part, the notes, will be saved) and move to an open and free (as in "free speech", not "free beer") alternative like MuseScore or Lilypond (never used it, but it was mentioned in this topic). MuseScore might have shortcomings or bugs, but help and support the creators by reporting bugs and posting feature requests so that they can make it better.


Edit:
I just noticed an update was posted in the MakeMusic website:

Clarifications on the initial announcement

Finale development has ended, but the Finale installer for any previously purchased version can still be downloaded from your eStore account. If your computer crashes or you need to install Finale on a new device, you’re not left without options.
We are committed to keeping the authorization process functional for a year. We’ve heard your concerns and are actively exploring ways to extend flexibility in the weeks ahead.
We understand that learning Dorico will be a steep learning curve, as it is with any complex notation or professional software. Both our team and Steinberg have developed extensive onboarding videos to guide you through the transition.

[Mary Ann]

I think what people are missing out of ignorance of Wade's situation is the basically impossible amount of NON-PAID work he will have to do because of the way MM pulled this off. MM also clearly has no concept of this and apparently views their program as a sophisticated kids' toy or something a hobbyist messes with, which aligns with many of the comments here. I think most of the commenters didn't really read what Wade wrote but skimmed over it. Someone who uses a notation program to write out things for students Is actually in the category that MM thinks everyone is.
Take a complex and lengthy pro-level-engraving Finale file, export it in transfer format, and bring it into Musescore and try to get anything at all like what you started with. The time required is astronomical and unpaid, the result of lesser quality.Then take that times 2000 and you may start to get the idea. MM is a bunch of a$$holes.

[Doug]

After 35 years they are closing up shop. And here I was, stupidly hoping that they would stop with all the STUPID feature additions and for once… JUST ONCE… focus on fixing some decades-old bugs that have pissed off the professional user base forever.

Nope.

I have used Finale since version 2.5 I still have the install floppies and the inch-thick (and very nice) manual. Finale has always been my "killer app" (that term seriously dates me, here), and it is why I purchased my first computer. That was sometime in 1995 or so.

I have thousands of files that will now become orphaned unless I purchase Dorico and relearn 29 years of basic information, shortcuts, and tricks. NONE of the other programs can do what Finale can do, even Dorico is still half-baked in comparison. But perhaps they will open up its abilities some as they take Finale's place.

Here is info from the future undeployed over at MakeMusic…

Have fun with this. Good luck…

Crap…

Dorico cannot open finale files. You'll have to convert them to musicXML, a woefully inadequate solution. At least musicXML works with basically everything.

[BramJ]

I think what people are missing out of ignorance of Wade's situation is the basically impossible amount of NON-PAID work he will have to do because of the way MM pulled this off. MM also clearly has no concept of this and apparently views their program as a sophisticated kids' toy or something a hobbyist messes with, which aligns with many of the comments here. I think most of the commenters didn't really read what Wade wrote but skimmed over it. Someone who uses a notation program to write out things for students Is actually in the category that MM thinks everyone is.
Take a complex and lengthy pro-level-engraving Finale file, export it in transfer format, and bring it into Musescore and try to get anything at all like what you started with. The time required is astronomical and unpaid, the result of lesser quality.Then take that times 2000 and you may start to get the idea. MM is a bunch of a$$holes.

Not ignoring it, just recommending him not to invest that non-paid time into another closed ecosystem that is partly responsible for this situation

[the elephant]

My research tells me that Finale's validation algorithm does not "call home" at startup, but only once when it is installed. When the tool attempts to validate an installation it reports the computer's SN to those nice kids at MM. You are only allowed three installs per license. (It used to be five, the cheap bast**ds) and this is how it prevents you from making an invalid install.

The authorization application checks to see that you do not already have the maximum number of devices with Finale installed using that license. If you do, it asks you to reauthorize one of your other installs first. (I have done this many times over the years.) If you do not (or your validation key is fake) you can use Finale in demo mode only, forever, until it is successfully validated. This means, forever, no saving your work, and no printing or making PDFs.

And all validation keys will be deactivated next year.

They either need to sell this or make it open source for the community to adopt and work on maintaining. This would be great because all the hated bloat could be excised and the long-standing bugs could be addressed. But they have expressed an opinion that Finale needs to be removed from the world forever. Why? Because they all invested in Dorico; Finale still being available somewhere would make them less money.

And you cannot import MUSX files (Finale's format) into *any* other engraver program. None of them are transferrable, but Finale is the most irascible in this regard. MusicXML was developed (and eventually adopted by Finale) to allow portability between applications. Finale files are so complex that MusicXML cannot hope to translate them. Unfortunately, Finale uses a lot of proprietary language that prevents translation. Finale files, exported to MusicXML do not work all that well in Finale itself, and in apps like MuseScore or Doricl/Sibelius they are useless garbage. In all honesty, it is faster to just retype the entire file from scratch than it is to "translate" it via the only export option, MusicXML.

If you remember the brouhaha over MSIE and pages that were "optimized for Internet Explorer" back in the day, the issue was that MS used a lot of in-house tags in their code that were not included in the tables published by whatever international standards board did that stuff. So if you used one of MS's programs to design and set up web pages (MS FrontPage, I think) the app would code your stuff so that it could not be properly translated by other browsers. If you used Apple's CyberDog, Netscape's Navigator, or any other browser used back then (my go-to was "iCab" from a German dev) your page would not display correctly. In many cases, it would not even be fully functional. This all was a part of the anti-trust crapfest over MSIE that led to the browser wars of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Finale was around before any of the other currently available engravers, and they have always used a lot of tags and language that the others decided were not necessary. So now when they try to translate a MUS or MUSX file you get a lot of gibberish. It is like music scanning software: it sucks. It does not work worth beans. It creates more work than simply starting over from scratch, which completely negates the claim that converting to the new app is easy. It is not. It is not a conversion. It is a wholesale abandonment of everything you have ever done, and starting from zero.

Thank you so much, MM. You guys can suck it. I will be removing you from my Christmas card list, you pack of greedy pricks.

[bloke]

I understand not wanting to learn a new program or to buy a new program. If a company did that to me, I would probably absolutely refuse to go to their new thing and probably jump over to something like Sibelius which was their competitor.
Otherwise, if everything that someone has created with Finale is converted to a PDF and stored - and even though they can no longer edit it, they still have it as a PDF which they can certainly share and print, or is that not correct either?

[the elephant]

From Brian Doughty of Cimmaron Press…

If you have Finale, some suggestions:

1. Turn off ALL automatic OS updates on your computer. Do not run the risk of having your computer update and eliminating the use of Finale.

2. Do not update whatever version of Finale you are currently using. Do not get a new computer.

3. Print ALL Finale files to PDF.

4. Export ALL Finale files to XML. Do this under File/Export. Before you do one folder, go to the XML Preferences and make sure "Subfolders" are checked as well. This will allow you to XML a massive amount of files at once.

4A. Grab a drink and watch the files convert.

5. Back up ALL files somewhere. ALL of them.

6. Look into Dorico and Sibelius. And pressure BOTH to find a way to import Finale files directly into their program.

7. Wonder why MakeMusic chose to partner with Steinberg. There has to be a reason.

XML: This is not perfect, but rather far from it. What it will do is preserve at least the notes when choosing a new program.

This isn't a ripple, but a tidal wave in the music world. For those of us who might be considered "experts" in the field with a tool called Finale, we are now relegated to amateurs starting from ground zero. That is gutting as any knowledge one had is no longer relevant., but I guess it's time to move on.[/quote]

[the elephant]

Joe, stop helping. You do not know how the programs work and do not seem to trust us to know how bad the situation is, as though you think we are children in need of sage advice or something.

Thank you, but no.

The issue for me is that I CAN NO LONGER MAKE MONEY AS AN ENGRAVER. Please allow me in your head to be smart enough to understand what is about to happen to me. You keep saying the same things and I keep trying to explain the situation to you. Let's just quit.

This is sort of like you losing the ability to play the tuba and having a lot of pending work that was earmarked to pay for your house, bills, food, etc., and having some guy on the Internet repeatedly telling you to just take a little time to master the contrabass clarinet and keep on working. If you take nothing else away from this thread, please retain this comparison. It will take me years to learn Dorico to the level needed to make any money from my work. The learning curve for it is just as steep as that of Finale, and in the end, the output is not as good, and the program is not as flexible/powerful. No commercially available engraving software can duplicate Finale's functionality.

This is a tidal wave, as Brian accurately said in my above-quoted passage.

Thanks, man, but just stop. There are no replacement applications currently available that can do what Finale does at anything near the quality. Why do you think so many very smart people have stuck with the damned thing all these years despite the inept customer service, bugs, and dismissal of the core user base of professional engravers' requests for bug fixes and to stop introducing new features until they are better than alpha quality software? It is because there is nothing else that can do what Finale can do. Everyone who says that Brand X Music Engraving Product is good enough for what they do DO NOT DO ANYTHING AT ALL ON THE SCALE THAT WE DO. They are not advanced enough with these applications to know the difference. All they know is that Finale's default output needs to be heavily tweaked. They want the program to think for them. WE DON'T, because then everyone's output looks the same, like Sibelius, which is just horrible. Finale allows your music to look like any big house. I have files of cards that imitate perfectly OUP, Breitkopf, and even Kalmus, and that is some of what people pay me for, to reconstruct out-of-print works so that you cannot tell they are not originals. You cannot even hope to do that sort of engraving with Dorico/Sibelius (the same thing, essentially) or MuseScore. And forget about LilyPond, which is a functional disaster if you need to tweak the output look at all, ever. All those programs offer the used simple, cookie-cutter solutions whereby the programmers decide what your stuff needs to look like.

Finale released a follow-up letter today whereby they try to handle the wave of backlash they received yesterday by "offering some correction and clarity" to what people are saying online about this decision. Then they proceed to say the exact, same things.

MM "partnered" with Steinberg, which means that Steinberg probably purchased Finale from MM and is now shutting down its only serious competition, which is a much better business model than allowing that competition to fix its flaws and continue to be your biggest competition.

Again, please allow us the respect to know how bad this situation is.

Because it is that bad.

[LeMark]

Did you see the evening update Wade?

[the elephant]

Did you see the evening update Wade?

Had not seen it. Checked my email just now due to your question, and

THAT SOLVES THE WORST PART. Now I have to purchase a new computer, permanently isolate it from the Internet, and freeze the OS and Finale pretty much forever.

But at least after spending a couple of grand I can rescue and continue to use and modify my thousands of files — as long as the computer never needs to be worked on…

[LibraryMark]

Did you see the evening update Wade?

Had not seen it. Checked my email just now due to your question, and

THAT SOLVES THE WORST PART. Now I have to purchase a new computer, permanently isolate it from the Internet, and freeze the OS and Finale pretty much forever.

But at least after spending a couple of grand I can rescue and continue to use and modify my thousands of files — as long as the computer never needs to be worked on…

Does Finale work on Windows? Linux? I don't know how it works for mac's, but if it were me (a retired IT pro) rather then run it on actual hardware and hope the hardware does not die, I would spin up a virtual computer and make sure it's backed up and snap-shot-ed. Fact is going forward I would bet that there are going to be VM's that people are going to share to keep finale going.

[Mary Ann]

At least I'm going to be able to get Finale 27 IF I do the transfer to Dorico, but I'd have to not update this brand new machine, which has already updated itself once in just a few days of being online. People are maybe not screwed as badly but the screw is still there. And I am a very casual user. I looked into Sibelius because I just need readable notation, not engraving, and found out I have to check in online once a month to keep using it, and it's basically an annual rental. I told them I'm not playing that game. I hate this crap not as much as Wade does "just" wrt Finale, but pretty damn close because of this being the way the world is and I can remember when it didn't appear to be like that. Perhaps I was naive.

Example of not playing the game: when the $2500 Dell arrived with Wii 11 on it and would not ALLOW me to use the computer unless I created a MS ID online, I sent the computer back for a refund and bought this one.

[Schlitzz]

Owning a Dell, means going to Hell.

[Mary Ann]

The problem was not with Dell but with Windows 11. Would not matter what the hardware is. Were I adept enough or young enough to desire to become adept enough, I'd likely go to Linux but I don't know if that solution would help Wade. If he gets a brand new PC with Win 11, he will also be forced to go online just to do the first startup, unless there is a workaround that I don't know about. I'm quite happy to be back on a Mac.

[tokuno]

Does Finale work on Windows? Linux? I don't know how it works for mac's, but if it were me (a retired IT pro) rather then run it on actual hardware and hope the hardware does not die, I would spin up a virtual computer and make sure it's backed up and snap-shot-ed. Fact is going forward I would bet that there are going to be VM's that people are going to share to keep finale going.

Probably the best solution for me. I'll spin up a Win11 instance, install, authorize, snap shot, and make do with my Finale 2012 (for the next few decades, God willing).
I've got a local raid 6 NAS mirrored to a backup array & also an off-site mirror. My future descendants will be able to mount Finale 2012 on their HOLO3K OS win11 emulation and laugh at me.

[Schlitzz]

I have thousands of files that will now become orphaned unless I purchase Dorico and relearn 29 years of basic information, shortcuts, and tricks. NONE of the other programs can do what Finale can do, even Dorico is still half-baked in comparison.

Doritos are baked, not fried. Totally baked? Nope, I usually work with them on cocaine. Wade, I think I found a 2011ish, Intel Mac Mini, 8 gb of ram. Old lady just used it for Facebook and photos. I could wipe it and send it to you.