PS - the "downgrade" to Windows 10 from 11 went well and very quickly.

Any advice? Try Finale 27, the actual latest version released June 15. It’s functional for the 30 day evaluation period,

MM has not yet announced Windows 11 support that I can find. 

Too late. I've already gone back to Windows 10. Can't see anything in v27 that warrants the price tag. Especially when Windows 11 is free!!!!

Do Make Music routinely monitor this forum?

They do, although they only occasionally make their presence known. The best way to "officially" contact them is via the Submit a Request tab at the top of the page.

Hi Peter, thanks for your post here.

We have been testing Finale v27 and v26 with the beta releases of Windows 11 as Microsoft has issued them. While we do not yet consider Windows 11 within the system requirements and is not supported for any version of Finale, we have not seen any major issues and the program has been launching and running as expected. 

Now that Microsoft has released the public version, we will test with this version to make sure that the results are the same and will provide updated information as it becomes available. Feel free to reach out to us directly if you would like to look into this further. If you have already gone back to Windows 10 though, I'm afraid there is not much we can do to find out what could have been causing the problem for you. 

Thanks to David for weighing in.

Hi. I have the latest version of finale, and my computer just upgraded to Windows 11. My problem is similar to Roberts from a few weeks ago - Finale hangs up on the splash page, loading no further as if stuck in a loading loop. I've already paid for the new version of Finale, which I like, and I don't want to spend the time to delete, downgrade and reinstall Windows 10. Any advice anyone can provide would be really helpful.

All the best,

Valencio Jackson

Hi Valencio, 

I have now successfully got Finale 26 working in Windows 11. Or rather, I had!

After about a week of problem free running. I started to get the freezing on the splash screen again.

I remembered that Finale 26 has suffered this before and there is a work round.

Run services.msc and locate the print spooler service. If you stop it you should find that Finale will start up without issue. You can then restart the print spool service.

It is irritating that this bug has recurred but I hope this fix helps.

Best wishes

Peter

Thanks Peter. This was a practical workaround. So I guess everytime I load finale I will have to separately stop the print spool service for Windows, open finale, then restart the print spool service? I'm glad at least there is something I could do to get the program running. I appreciate the help! I'm hoping the finale techs get around to this fix sooner than later. It will only become a bigger problem in the future.

All the best,

Valencio

Fortunately MS told me my computer does not qualify for Win 11. I'm fine with that! Everything is running perfectly and I want it to continue to do so.

NotePerformer 3 is good, Perfect Layout is good and Finale 27 is good.

Sadly MM have said they will do nothing about 26 and Windows 11. Those of us who don’t need to upgrade, which apparently works, still have to shell out dosh for their fix since they say a v26 fix would be so difficult.

My computer is new so a roll back to Win10 is not possible or in my case desirable but at some point Win11 support will be essential, which it already is for this loyal user.

Very sad since I gave up Sidbilius for Finale.

This is what MM said, as of October 15, 2021.

After thorough testing with our Finale notation and Garritan products, we have not found anything in Windows 11 that prevents the programs from operating as expected. Windows 11 is considered a supported OS within our system requirements.

I managed to contact MM support whose initial advice was to check the printer drivers! I was dubious about it but found that my Brother printer had an update available. I downloaded and updated the printer driver and the Finale 26 loading problem went away.  It seems that Finale 26 has a real issue when interacting with some printer drivers. However it does seem to be one of those problems where the issue is inconsistent and probably hardware/software configuration dependent. Certainly I would try the printer driver update route first and then, only if that doesn’t cure it, go for stopping the printer spooler service before loading Finale 26 and then restarting the service.  Hope this helps.

 It seems that Finale 26 has a real issue when interacting with some printer drivers. 

Uhhh... many apps have a real issue with some printer drivers. especially over Windows. Once upon a time, I worked for a company that wrote print client/server apps and daemons for Windows. I left nearly 20 years ago so this issue is nothing new.

Interestingly, installing 27—even if Demo only—on a Mac fixes a big one with pdf printing in 26, too, which was a pleasant surprise. Without violating any NDAs, it's safe to say that I was one of the reasons that Mac printing/scanning finally worked properly in Snow Lion 10.8.3 after Apple broke it to varying degrees in 10.5—10.8.2.

I had advice from support to update drivers so went through the business but no updates available, probably since this is a new computer with native Win11. I also submitted the requested DX and System Info logs and was advised that all drivers are up to date. The printer is an HP laserjet so their drivers are normally fine.

Finally support came back that the only way to use 26 with Win11 is to do the disable spool business which of course make the use of the computer for other apps requiring printing impossible. They also advised that it would be too difficult to update 26 so shell out for 27.

Sounds like a new developer doesn't like to mess with old code, which is all very strange if 26 uses standard print calls it should all work.

Anyway there we are, sadly it seems 26 does not work with new Win11 installations. Fortunately I have the older 2014.5 version and that seems to be just fine including printing. The only thing is it nags to update to 26!!!!

That's my solution for what its worth.

You only need to stop the spooler service in order to start Finale 26. Once it is up you can re enable the spooler service.

Thanks for that pointer but I have uninstalled 26 and gone back to 2014.5.

If MM make a fix then I will reinstall 26.

I'll tell you right now, it is not a driver issue. My printer drivers (Brother) are up to date as of 10 seconds ago. Yes, stopping the print spooler works, but one shouldn't have to do that. I expect it to run without a work-around. Make Music CLEARLY states that Finale 26.3.1 works with Windows 11. Deceptive or false advertising? How about it Make Music?

Finale for Windows^® (v26.3.1)

• Windows 8.1, 10 or 11 (64-bit Intel or AMD processors only)

I'll tell you right now, it is not a driver issue.

Then you know what the problem is? Without troubleshooting your system, none of the rest of us know this. You might be right but there's a conflict or a path issue somewhere. That is certain.

The only suggestion I can make is for you to download the 27 demo. Whether it works or doesn't will tell MM Support something. If 27 does work, you should be able to find any path issue with 26.

I just built this system myself last week, so it's a virgin machine with very few programs on it. There's no path issue as far as I can tell, as the shortcut points to the correct path and exe file, unless it has something to do with OneDrive, which I ditched, but I don't believe that's the issue. It's not my antivirus nor Malwarebytes. The print spooler work-around works, but we shouldn't need to do that. I just upgraded to 27. I don't have the time nor patience to keep screwing around with this.

So you are saying 27 works as it should?

I had no problems at all with 27. Opened right up.

Thank you PETER ROBERTSON. RUN SERVICES.MSC AND STOP PRINT SPOOLER. I have been uninstalling and reinstalling Finale 25 a half dozen times since Windows 11 came out. This worked immediately. I stopped the Print Spooler, and restarted Finale while it was bugging, and viola. It works fine. Thank you so much. (ps, sorry this is like months late; I have been delaying Windows 11 updates for this exact reason and it auto installed itself -_-)

I ran into this problem today. I solved by making sure the driver was correct - for whatever reason Windows 11 was using the generic IPP driver on my Brother printer.  When I changed this to the native driver finale started up.

Thanks, Peter. Stopping the print spooler service did the trick for me. I'm not opposed to upgrading to Finale 27, but the immediate fix for v26 was just what I needed.