VD 2 was working great over the weekend.  I wanted to use some of the files in my lessons, so I took my laptop with me and Finale just hung.  It would play a note every two bars.  I'm using 2003.  I brought the laptop home and it works fine.  Here's the thing.  I was operating on battery power in my lessons but I am plugged in AND using a midi keyboard at home.  My laptop was on its own in the lesson.  Is there something that is telling my puter to run at a lower processor speed because I am not plugged in to an outlet?  HELP!!

If it's a Mac, then yes, there are different settings for battery vs. plug. Tiger has it, I think Panther did, and I don't know before that. Go to the 'Energy Saver' pref, select the correct type (Power Adaptor or Battery) and in the 'Options' section you can change the 'Processor Performance' setting.

If you're on Windows, I can't help you :D

Sorry, I'm using Windows.  I checked the Power schemes they have but they dont say anything about processor speed. 

Well as I tried to work it out more, it happened again.  I am plugged in and still having the same problems.  I went to Task Manager to see what program was taking up all of my resources.  Finale was using 98% of my cpu.  VD2 didnt seem to be the culprit.  So I created a standard score on Finale with a few quarter notes just to play them back and the same thing happened.  VD 2 was not even turned on.  What is causing Finale to just hang like this?  I'm thinking of just deleting it and reinstalling it. 

Well the reinstall seems to have worked for now.  Let's see how long it lasts.  I still dont know what happened.  :(

When you initially unplugged your MIDI keyboard, you may have created a scenario where Finale was getting hung in a midi loop. This seems to catch a lot of us Sibelius folks from time to time...usually when we're away from our normal working setup. Check and be sure your MIDI INPUT is not the same device as your OUTPUT.  If, when you removed the keyboard, Finale set your input device (formerly your keyboard) to the next available device, it's possible that this type of loop can occur. These are bad. Take a peek in Finale's MIDI Setup and make sure it's either set to use your keybaord (if it's plugged in), or something OTHER than the device currently assigned to the OUTPUT.

For example, if your Output device is set to MIDI Yoke NT Port 1, it's ok to set it to MIDI Yoke NT Port 4 since you're likely not using that.

In the future, when you make these types of postings, try to give your topic a more descriptive title, and be sure to list all your system hardware/software specs. It'll be more informative for everyone that way.

Hope this helps!