Just an hour ago Daniel posted to alert us to the end of an era for Finale, which I originally bought in September, 1988. I thought users here would want a place to say things about this news. As for me, I left Finale work behind in 2003 once I was confident enough with Sibelius. But I’m sure there are many thousands of people who will hold onto it for the rest of their lives.
If you have relevant stories, let’s keep them short, as the Team and several of us users aim to read everything here.
Big (and poignant, somehow) news, indeed!
I bought my first copy of Finale in 1991. I can remember loading in the 8–10 floppy disks to install it and get started on my first-ever computer engraving experience: a 45-min. symphony for large orchestra, by a composition teacher of mine in grad school and paid for by a grant he got. Talk about trial by fire!
I used Finale exclusively until early 2022, but had purchased Dorico Pro in the summer of 2021 to dip a toe in. Serious and exclusive Dorico used started in August, 2022, and I’ve been really happy with the experience and results!
Indeed, shocking news! I feel for all the Finale users having to export all their files to XML (I’m sure people have hundreds or thousands). I did it when I switched to Dorico from Sibelius back when Dorico was released. It took a lot of time. I teach now, and have a lot of students still using Finale (even though I’ve recommended the switch to Dorico for years).
How hard would it be to create an import function for Finale files? Not next week or anything, but for Dorico 5.5 or 6? Only because MakeMusic endorsed Dorico. This would allow users of Finale to not rush to export files right now while their version of Finale works on their OS. Is it possible for the Dorico team at this point to make a statement saying it’s either impossible or possible? I’d like to be able to let my students know. Thanks!
So it wouldn’t get lost among our reflections and stories, I just posted this thread, @mountainmusichttp:
I guess that would depend on if any of the Finale developers cross the proverbial street and apply to Steinberg (hint/hint). I’m not advocating poaching, per se, just seems like a good time to bolster the development ranks at Steinberg.
PS: I could never wrap my head around Finale. I must have downloaded more than 10 different trial versions and always gave up after a few days.
Shocking news. I started with Finale 98 and used it heavily for years. Since moving to Dorico in 2018, I’ve forgotten basically everything about Finale… I had to open a file the other day and was completely stymied. But I have no hate for Finale. It served me well, and obviously still has a very strong (and very loyal) user base.
I moved from Encore to Finale around 1998 and recall at some point Finale directly imported Encore files. It was helpful although still needed tweaking of files. That of course was before XML which I used when I switched to Dorico v1 to convert all my finale files with minimal tweaking for the most part. It really was only the (mostly hidden) flaws in my Finale engraving that caused the most problems in converting.
Congratulations to the Dorico folks for this agreement with Finale. Very classy statement and move on MakeMusic’s part.
I started using a copy of MusicProse 2.1 – which was possibly a cut-down “Elements”-style version – back in 1993.
It was on a Mac in a school I worked in, and the manual had been lost; so I had to figure it all out myself.
I bought Finale for my own Mac in the early 2000s; and used successive versions until I saw how Dorico was going to make things so much easier.
I was a regular beta-tester, and even wrote book on how to use it!
It’s been on life-support for many years, but still never thought I’d see the day.
I jumped in at Finale 2.2 or 2.3 (1993-4ish) and it was my main software for 25 years or so. I really did do a ton of copy work back in those days. Granted, you had to “extract parts” before linked parts were implemented, and I still extract Reed parts to fix the headers, but yeah, I have just a few Finale files on my system:
Searching my Finale Files folder for *.mus and *.musx results in 14,420 files! I beta tested for them back in the late 90s - early 2000s and got to know some of the developers pretty well. I even dropped by the mothership in Minnesota when I was out there on tour circa 2010, and put a bunch of them on the guest list for the gig.
Honestly, it wasn’t hard to see the writing on the wall, and the complete lack of development is one of the main reasons I jumped ship and switched to Dorico. I just assumed it would be eventually rolled into SmartMusic rather than killed off completely. RIP Finale!
I bought Finale Allegro 2000, about the time was available… Continued the to buy every upgrade… Now it’s all rubbish ??
Well, it will continue to work (EDIT: until August, 2025 (as long as your OS remains compatible)). But I know I sure will be doing some bulk MusicXML exporting over the next few months…
I don’t think that’s true. Didn’t I read that the licenses will stop working?
One can’t activate a license on a new machine but activated instances will remain working – supported also for 1 year.
I thought they were valid “through the (calendar?) year.” Did I mis-read? I’ll go back…
Thanks for catching me on that, @dan_kreider.
After one year, beginning August 2025, these changes will go into effect:
Remember, “unsupported” does not mean it will stop working. It means you can no longer get official help with it.
Without the Finale source code, likely impossible. This same question (or a similar one) was raised when people started moving from Sibelius to Dorico. The point is that each program has file formats that are unique: reading the data in a Finale file probably isn’t that hard, but it doesn’t mean anything without the Finale engine to interpret it.
Make use of MusicXML.
I lost a bit of money, I purchased a competitive crossgrade a month ago. But for me the trouble is converting 30 years of compositions.
Must make a routine: open file, save ‘just in case’ pdf, save xml and then CHECK in dorico if all notes are there. Gosh. Hundreds of files.
But does “It will not be possible to […] reauthorize Finale” mean that current licenses will be terminated one year from now and it becomes unusable?
Perhaps Steinberg wants to hire some developers from Finale now to enlagre the small Dorico team. 
It means that you can’t authorise new installations; but existing authorised installations will continue to work. The software doesn’t phone home. There’s a little invisible file on your hard drive whose contents are checked at launch.
