Without listing all of the questions, mainly because it would be difficult to answer some of 'em through either lack of exact memory, IE date, and lack of experience.
I first saw a cardboard box on the shelf of a local music and musical instrument shop, (Store) when I went in for some new strings for the guitar I was trying to learn how to play. That was a few years before I bought a PC and started learning how to use one of them. I asked what the heck is this Band in a box thing? expecting to see some new fangled bit of hardware. The guy in the shop explained it was software for computers, I immediately lost interest and bought my strings. Technologically, I was a bit behind, even though I was repairing basic electronic control systems on machinery at work.
My first PC was an E Machines, with not a lot of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, and the year was 2004 so a 2.7GHZ single core processor. At that time I knew nothing about computers, but wanted to learn and see what a computer could do for me musically.
my first software, musical that is, was Notations 2 by Magix software. That got me interested, so bought both the two notational and possibly the most expensive software available in 2006, Sibelius, and Finale.
A year later is when I finally got Band in a box.
How do I use it, well mainly as an on going teaching myself music aid, though other things did take over, like playing cornet in an award winning brass band and learning how to get better at playing that, so somehow BIAB has taken a back seat. However I recently dropped from playing in the band, mainly to get my life back I suppose, so I am slowly getting back into music for fun rather than music to win prizes. BIAB should become more of a front runner now.