It appears that Finale 25.3 has a script to batch export XML files. That's where I suggest you begin your exploration.

Methinks everyone is getting ahead of the game here. First you need to be able to open those files in a version of Finale that can read them. 25 should but it might take some prep work on your part.

2.6 files will probably not have the .mus suffix visible—if it is, you just got lucky. If not, you will need to fix this.  I can tell you how to do this on a Mac but not in Windows. If the suffix is simply not there, add .mus or .musx to the file name. 25 should now open it. Once you get one open, youLL need to run some sort of script that fixes all of them.

A 2.6 file may be using Sonata from Adobe. If you can open a file but nothing is visible, change the default font to Maestro or Palatino and see if that works. If it does, then save. 

Although I go back that far, I opened all of mine in 1998 (and Finale 1998) and saved with the .mus extension. 25 can open them all 19 years later. 2.6 files are a lot older.

I don't have Finale (yet) nor have I ever used it. I can trivially rename the files to add .mus from the command line (as I said, they came from a Mac system where no file extensions were used). 

Thank you for all the help.

>>Mike said: "...change the default font to Maestro or Palatino...."

Mike, I think of Palantino as a text font. Could you have meant Petrucci?

Could you have meant Petrucci?

Ha! Yes, of course —Thanks! I no longer recall what the early versions used for text anymore. My floppies are long gone as are my Mac+ and Performas and G3s. I do have Finale 1998 running on an old G4 that can boot in OS 9, however.

>I don't have Finale (yet) nor have I ever used it. I can trivially rename the files to add .mus from the command line (as I said, they came from a Mac system where no file extensions were used). <

OK but you are saying thousands of files. This is going to call for some scripting. The Finale 25 demo is fully functional for 30 days. You do not get the Garritan Instruments till purchase but you don't need them for this. MusicXML did not exist before 2004. Fortunately, Finale has some powerful scripting tools but I don't know if that's enough.

This might be a multi-step process involving a version that runs on OS 9 first. Perhaps these files will open directly in 25. I just don't know. 

If Mr. Good (high priest of all matters MusicXML) weighs in on this thread, that's great. I'd certainly like to see what he has to say. Otherwise, you don't have access to tech support till you purchase.

It's nice to see a truly unusual thread here.

OK, I've had some more time to work on this (it being a holiday Monday here). Mike is right, of course: getting the files open is the first step.

Renaming them was trivial as they had no extension: for f in *;do mv $f $f.mus;done (you don't need scripts to do this kind of thing, fortunately).

Now there are 2213 single-tune files and 47 multi-tune files, all ending in .mus, so I downloaded and installed the current 30-day trial onto my iMac.

When I opened the folder where the files are (in Finder) they all acquired the music icon, so that bit of OS magic-cookie works.

But when I open Finale and try to use File > Open on the first file, it instantly pops up a window saying "Finale cannot open the selected filetype."

Note that is not claiming that it cannot open the file — it's saying it can't handle this filetype. That just sounds like sloppy messaging to me, so I tested it by renaming the file to end with no extension at all (like Macs used to be :-). The icon didn't change (but that may just be caching) but the file still didn't open in Finale (and now, of course, the error message makes no sense whatsoever, as the filename doesn't have a file type). 

The files clearly don't open in the current version, which is poor design, but expected. I could install OS9 in a VM if I can find a copy of the last OS9 version of Finale; alternatively (almost preferable), I can install an old Windows OS version (does anyone know if Mac Finale files of that era also opened in Windows)? But in either case, where would I look to find a copy of the Finale software of that age?

Once I can open the files and see what's in them, I can then decide if the project is worth pursuing.

P

Hi Peter:

I'm able to open File files from 1993 (~2.6 or 2.0) in Finale 25.3. I'm also able to batch export to MusicXML valid Finale 2.6 files. Of course, I'm not sure what shape your files are in. I'm just pointing out that things are working for me.

Cheers,

Michael Johnson

VP, Professional Notation

MakeMusic

>Open on the first file, it instantly pops up a window saying "Finale cannot open the selected filetype."<

I have seen this before. Try changing the suffix to .musx and see what happens. 

Thank you, Michael J...interesting. Maybe these are not Finale files, although that was the software the project used, and they were on disks in folders labelled "Finale files". I described the format of the start of each of the two types of file in my original post. Do you know if the file signature of v2.6 Finale files is documented? In your success in reading 1993 files on a Mac or Windows?

Michael H...I will try .musx, but that sounds as if it implies XML, and these files predate XML (1992).

P

Just do one and see if it opens.

Peter F,

What happens if you double-click on one of the files? It would be ironic to discover they were PDF's of Finale files or something like that.

So I renamed one from .mus to .musx but it had the same effect, "Finale cannot open the selected filetype."

Double-click gets the same result. They can't be PDFs because they don't start with the PDF signature (%PDF-) and anyway, they date from 1992, and the PDF spec wasn't openly released until 1993: in 1992 people were using Postscript for print-files, not PDF. See my original post: the file starts with (hex) x00x00x00x00x00x00x99xFFxC0. 

I took the plunge and rebooted into Windows 10 (I run Ubuntu on my university-issue desktop, so Windows is still there on its original partition, unloved and unused). Good grief. Shock to the system :-) So I installed the trial version of F25 but ran out of time. I'll upload the files and try opening one tomorrow.

In the process, I noticed that the "Library" section of a Finale web account provides for the possibility that a user might have old versions of the product. Does anyone know where or how we might obtain a copy of the 2.6 version to see if it opens the files?

OK, it's clear that the Windows version of F25 won't open the files either, although weirdly the error message says the same thing but is worded differently: "Invalid file type, file C:\Users\pflynn\Documents\tunes\1203.mus" so there is obviously a non-shared codebase in Finale.