Windows:

When Sibelius starts up, it will scan all VSTPlugins in this folder:

C:\Program Files\Sibelius Software\VSTPlugins

This folder usually only contains a few plugins but if it contains hundreds of plugins, remove most of them and only include the ones you really need.

If that VST Plugins folder contains no plug-ins or even just a few plug-ins, it's likely that you may have changed the default location that Sibelius looks at for the VST Plugins. This setting is in Sibelius' Audio Engine Options. You can find this in the Play menu, Playback Devices. If the path to the VST Plugins is not set to the following location, click Browse and choose the default again, which is:

C:\Program Files\Sibelius Software\VSTPlugins

You'll need to restart Sibelius to apply this setting.

If you can't even start Sibelius because it's hanging or crashing when scanning the VST Plugins, then the chances are Sibelius is looking in the wrong location for the plugins. As you can't get into Sibelius to reset the location, as above, then you can do the following:

• Download and open this zip archive: Sib5_6_Reset_VSTPlugins_winxpvista7.zip
• Double click on the Sib5_6_Reset_VSTPlugins_winxpvista7.reg file and click Yes when prompted

The next time Sibelius starts up, it will reset the path to C:\Program Files\Sibelius Software\VSTPlugins and will only scan the plug-ins that are contained in that folder.

Mac:

Sibelius will scan and use all plug-ins found in both of the Components and and VST folders, which are located here:

/Library/Audio/Plug-ins

If Sibelius is hanging on startup or taking too long to scan all your plug-ins, you can manually move any unwanted plug-ins out of these Components or VST folders and Sibelius won't load them.

There are some 3rd-party solutions for managing your Audio Units on Mac where you can create different groups of plug-ins for different applications. This allows you to start Sibelius with only the plug-ins that you would want to use. See Audio Unit Manager for more details.