Sonar focus in Windows 7.

A Sonar friend of mine swears that he used to be playing Sonar X1 (triggering soft-synths with a midi keyboard) and typing notes into Notepad while he was playing. Now he's complaining that, since updating to X2, when he opens Notepad, Sonar (softsynths) stops responding to his keyboard. (When he clicks on Sonar header, everything returns to normal). Personally I thought this happened with ANY Windows program that loses focus to another program. He swears up and down he used to play AND work inside Notepad at the same time. Just curious what y'all think. Is it possible for Sonar to operate while another program has focus?!?! Thanks! CakeFan PS - He's triggering various Sonar softsynths with a Roland A-90EX through his Emu 1212m soundcard/midi port.