Main tools palette disappeared! Help!

[shallinan1]

I have Finale 2010, using Windows 10 on a Toshiba Satellite C-55 laptop computer. Recently, I was moving the main tools palette and it disappeared. I can not get it back.

So far, I have tried:
1. restarting Finale multiple times
2. going to Window, unchecking the main tool palette option and rechecking it
3. reloading Finale
4. checking for updates
5. looking for places the main tool palette may be hidden in an effort to drag it out again
6. editing the main tool palette in an effort to get it back
7. attempting to reset preferences via the edit menu (this does not seem possible with Finale 2010.)
8. looking for the preferences folder in the user data files of my computer, and deleting it

None of this has made any difference. Please help! Thank you!!

[N Grossingink]

Set your computer monitor to the highest resolution. If then you see the palette, drag it to the center of the screen and reset the resolution.

[shallinan1]

Thanks for your reply! My computer is already set to its highest resolution (1366 x 768) so alas this trick did not help. I tried resetting the resolution to a lower setting, then bumping it back up to the highest resolution, but no luck with this either.

[HaraldS]

Trashing the preference file has helped other people in comparable situations:

How to do it: Resetting Finale's preferences (using a tool crashes Finale, etc.)

e.g.: window with sharps, flats, naturals, etc has disappeared

[motet]

That's probably worth trying, but the toolbar positions are stored in the Windows registry, not the preferences file, I'm afraid. They look like

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MakeMusic\Finale2014.5\Finale\ToolBarStates-Bar1]
"BarID"=dword:0000e800
"Visible"=dword:00000000
"XPos"=dword:fffffffe
"YPos"=dword:0000003e
"Docking"=dword:00000001
"MRUDockID"=dword:00000000
"MRUDockLeftPos"=dword:00000000
"MRUDockTopPos"=dword:0000003e
"MRUDockRightPos"=dword:000000f2
"MRUDockBottomPos"=dword:00000060
"MRUFloatStyle"=dword:00002004
"MRUFloatXPos"=dword:80000000
"MRUFloatYPos"=dword:00000000

But there are 15 or so of these (Bar2, Bar3, etc.), and what the fields mean are anybody's guess. It's worth asking MakeMusic, as this has likely occurred to others. In the worst case, you could reinstall.

[ebiggs1]

You need to uninstall it and reinstall it. Less frustrating!

[shallinan1]

Thanks for all the responses!

I tried to reset the preferences, following the instructions in the Finale Knowledge Base article. The instructions say to go to Edit - Preferences. However, in my version of Finale there is no option to change the preferences in the Edit drop-down menu. I can't find an option to reset preferences anywhere else either.

I deleted and reinstalled the program, with no change in its behavior except that I no longer have the update to Finale 2010b, which is not available for download anymore. Now I'm back to Finale 2010a. (No big deal since Finale is basically unusable at this point anyway.)

Help!

[ebiggs1]

When you deleted Finale you probably didn't delete the preferences. You need to delete them from your computer. On the reinstall it probably just read the old preference file and set things that way.

If I remember correctly; C:\Users\[your account]\AppData\Roaming\MakeMusic\Finale 20xx
You should see it. Just delete it.

[motet]

Did you uninstall and then reinstall, or just reinstall?

Again, the toolbar states are stored in the Windows registry. After uninstalling see if

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MakeMusic\Finale2010\Finale

still exists. If so, delete it before reinstalling.