I'm very frustrated with this program.  Anyone know how I can get a refund?

I don't work for Cakewalk, but my advice would be to go to their main site (not this user forum) and ask in some of the sales links / channels. Certainly there's little that we here can do for you unless we have experience returning Sonar product (in which case we're not likely to be here in the forum).
 
If you find that there just is no refund love for you after contacting Cakewalk, you can come back here and tell us a what kind of problems you're having with a few more specifics and maybe we can help you get over some hurdles. Sometimes it's just the concept that you need to wrap your brain around. Also let us know if you have expectations from having worked in another DAW in the past -- I've heard it said that it can be difficult to switch from one to another because of fundamental design differences.
 
Short of that, take some time to go through the tutorials and documentation. Even though I've used Cakewalk products for many years, when I recently picked up their latest Sonar platform, I hit the manuals and read through them from Chapter one. And that was just me re-familiarizing myself with concepts, not learning from scratch.
 
That means not making music for awhile, but it's worth it.
 
Speck
 

Thanks for the kind words.  Can I give you an idea of what I'm dealing with?  First, I used to have a copy of Cakewalk Music Creator way back about 10 years ago. It was very simple to use and I mostly worked with Piano Roll.  I wanted to create backing tracks for my songs and I know that midi doesn't sound that great but it was better than nothing.  When I purchased this program I was expecting something similar.  I was surprised to find that I couldn't hear any sound on the piano keys (left of screen) and when I entered some notes and tried to play it back, no sound again.  I thought maybe it had something to do with my sound card so I tested it using a few other programs like YouTube or Windows Media Player and they all worked fine.  Apparently Cakewalk must want something else but I have tried multiple settings and nothing works.  The only sound card that shows is Realtek High Definition.  I'm not techie so I don't know how to set the program up.  I wonder if you might be able to help.  I don't even know what to look for.  
Thanks

The basic MIDI part of the way Sonar works is pretty much the way it's been for a long, long time, back when it was called Cakewalk whatever. It's the same piano roll thing, event list, etc. The most that has changed over the years is the audio stuff (non-MIDI waveform stuff, same as recording on tape), but if you just make MIDI tracks and record / play, plus use the piano roll, it should be the same as before.
 
But the you need to have MIDI ability in your computer. Getting sound from youtube is all audio, not MIDI. Since it's not the same thing, playing those clips doesn't show that your current computer can do MIDI.
 
Did you have an old Soundblaster card in your computer 10 years ago or some other sound card that had MIDI capability? Even if you didn't use the inputs and outputs to work with an external keyboard, you could still use a MIDI program like Cakewalk to play the sounds on the sound card itself (they often have General MIDI synthesizers right on the card, a synth on a chip).
 
Realtek is usually the onboard audio that most computer systems come with built in these days, but that's MIDI.  It could be that you didn't have to deal with any of this before if you bought a computer with a sound card installed that had MIDI, but most computers don't come with sound cards at all in them anymore, because it's all onboard (on the motherboard), at least the audio part is.
 
Resolution: so if my guess are correct, then you have to buy a sound card -- one with MIDI capability, then install it in your computer or have it installed. Then you may have to get into the Sonar preferences dialog to select the new soundcard (if it doesn't automatically recognize it).
 
 
BUT DOUBLE-CHECK first to see if you already have something MIDI in your machine: Run Sonar, bring up the Preferences dialog from the Edit menu, scroll down to the MIDI section and select Devices. Is anything listed there?
 
If there's nothing in that box, ask here about what sound cards you need. I see some for about $40 online, but I'm not familiar with recent sound cards.
 
Speck
 

Home Studio is a great DAW for starting out with. I have the full version too, but I use Home studio to work with pure midi files to make backing tracks for live performance. I wanted the simple version as I will be using it live eventually. For now I export to wave files and playback using good old Win Amp. 
The VST instruments that come with HS are a bit limited but I have added a few free and almost free extras and the sound quality of what I put out is miles ahead of what I used to have a few years ago. 
I use the SI bass, a few sounds from TTS-1 and the SI piano. I don't like the SI drums so I bought Strike2 when it was on sale for $40. It's pretty near as good as any VST drummer I've used. 
 
Your just going through the usual learning curve that no matter which DAW you buy you'll just have to endure.
You have to insert a VST instrument to play midi tracks. 
 

To get sound out of Sonar you will need to (best) purchase a proper audio interface and use ASIO drivers or
suffer the on board sound card and use WASAPI exclusive mode which is already there, or install Asio4all.   
 
It will use your on board sound as output. You won't be able to do much other than use midi and drop audio clips into the tracks. Recording your guitar or bass will defiantly require a proper audio interface. 

Thank you for all your effort.  My laptop does not have midi so I think that may be the problem.  I'm pretty tapped out for putting any more money into this program.  I think I will request a refund.  But thanks anyway.

That's some really weird advice you got. Of course your computer can "do midi", because Home Studio does it. What Cactus means is if you want to play a keyboard and record the notes, or play back midi with a hardware synth, you will need some form of midi communication to that instrument, be it USB or a traditional midi port. I'm not sure what NotASpeckOfCereal means but he may be referring to the ancient built-in synths that some sound cards used to have.

Previously you probably used the built in Microsoft midi synth in Windows. I'm not sure if that's still an option on all systems but it sounds like crap anyway and there are better things included in Home Studio. Looking at the "versions" page (from the (Sonar Platinum page, strangely it's not available from the Home Studio page) it shows that Home Studio comes with five instruments:
- Studio Instruments Bass
- Studio Instruments Electric Piano
- Studio Instruments Strings
- Studio Instruments Drums
- Rapture Session

The first four are pretty self explanatory, the last one is sort of a multi-instrument thing with many different sounds.

So what you need to do is not make a "midi" track but find "insert softsynth" in the menus at the top, and if a dialog pops up (I don't know if it will, I use Sonar Platinum and it does) select "simple instrument track". This will give you a track that looks like a midi track (piano roll, midi input etc) but has an audio output. The reason behind this is simple - midi doesn't actually make sound. It's just note data. You need to have a synthesizer to play back the notes. In this case, that synthesizer is a plug in program in your computer. It's true that you will get better performance (namely, less delay between hitting a note and hearing sound) with a proper dedicated audio interface but regardless of the interface you should be able to get sound and work.

Hopefully that's enough to get you started, let us know if you have more questions.

Im not sure you can get a refund.
Who's to say you don't keep using the software after being refunded ? There is no way of knowing.
That's why sales are final with almost all software.
 
the problems you are having seem pretty trivial and easy to fix with a little brush up on how audio/midi works.
There is a lot of documentation and videos on you tube.
 
You are probably best to leave a good list of your laptop specs, exc.
And hopefully you checked the system requirements before installing.
 
Good luck
 

Click the P button on your computer keyboard to bring up Preferences.
What is listed for Audio and MIDI, Devices and Playback and Recording?
What are your MIDI track in/outs set to?
Posting some screenshots of your Preferences would help if you're able to do that. Upload the images to an image hosting site, grab the Direct Link, uh, link, and Insert Image here.