[Answered] Will the X3 trial co-exist happily with 8.5? What about shared components?

Hi all, I'm going to give the X3 trial a go, to see if it's worth upgrading from 8.5. However, if I do not choose to upgrade, I'll have to uninstall X3 at the end. So I have 2 questions:
 
1) Will installing X3 alongside 8.5 cause any problems? I assume they will use the same VST paths along with various other shared files, so hopefully the installation doesn't overwrite anything that 8.5 relies upon?
2) Similarly, if I uninstall X3, it will be removing files from shared locations - has anybody verified that uninstalling X3 won't remove any plugins that were installed for earlier versions of Sonar?

The X3 install allows prior versions to co-exist.  It installs most release-specific items to separate folders.
 
Please note that the Cakewalk Plugin Manager is different, and I believe it may replace the older one.  PLEASE note that I cannot state this as factual - I believe my X3 install changed the X2 plugin manager (I am not at my music computer at the moment).
 
Someone else will hopefully chime in with info on the above.
 
But, I can tell you that regardless, on my system X2 and X3 live happily next to each other, and others have X1 and X3 playing nicely, and I would be fairly confident in there being some folks that have as far back as 8.5.3 as well.
 
X3 WILL have a learning curve, but is well worth the upgrade.  SOOO many nice things, once you get used to the massive change between 8.5.3 and X3.
 
Bob Bone
 

While waiting for an authoritative source, I can tell you using the trial versions was a way for some to take advantage of bug fixes for shared utilities. New versions have to overwrite shared utilities when updated. In this case VST3 support work work without an update. But I too await a definitive answer.

The plug-in manager has to be backward compatible. It still supports user defined layouts. If I were concerned about impacting an old installation, I would not run the uninstall process to remove the trial instead delete the folder containing the trial program.

Another option available is to create a restore point of your system prior to the installation. Then if you choose to back out of the trial version completely, you can. This option will not allow you to "pick and choose" what you want to keep, however.

Unfortunately neither a backup nor a restore point will guarantee that I can easily get everything back to the previous state, as the installation and the data files exist in various different places across the disk. It would also mean I can't install anything else to the system during the trial period which is a no-go.

Yep, just waiting for someone to speak up either from authority or from experience. Thanks for the comments so far.

you could image the disk using acronis or similar?

different partition, multiboot?

I'll just buy the recording studio down the road and install it in there.

You have various choices it seems...
 

• Install, play with it then remove. See what gives.
• Restore with backup afterwards if necessary (I use Acronis). I always recommend a backup strategy before installing any new software regardless.
• Uninstall old copies of Sonar afterwards and reinstall.
• Use another PC or dual boot to a fresh operating system.
• Buy and install the full version of Sonar X3 afterwards.

 
NB During the demo installation I would point the VST file path to somewhere else.
 
Sadly virtualization probably won't be an option.
If you are looking for guarantees you probably won't find any here, the rest is up to you (sorry). BTW what operating system are you running right now? (Will it meet the requirements?)
 
Cheers...

While waiting for the Cakewalk staff to visit the thread, there is a method to directly contact them here

FWIW, I always make a backup copy of all the \shared folders before installing a new version, as well as any sub-folders under \users'appdata\cakewalk that aren't unique - basically anything the doesn't have a version number suffix.   And I've never had an issue going back if and when needed.    Anecdotal, yes, but it sure seems to work.
 

Kylotan
Of course they can. They have a precise list of the components that get installed and uninstalled. They can also easily test this situation. Install 8.5, install trial, uninstall trial, test 8.5. The only issue is whether they care enough to do it, and have the resources to do so.

Exactly. With unlimited resources, of course anything is achievable, but please understand that actually they can't test this in all scenarios, there could be many different scenarios you are running a PC after all. Being in software you know this I'm sure :) Perhaps you should test it yourself (that is after all what a demo is for).
 
Really the whole point of demos is for you to try and eval it, if it doesn't work for you don't use it, if you are expecting some sort of quality of service with install/uninstall, well good luck with that... Hopefully it will work, otherwise you will need to find another way of doing this (I can't think what else, it's already been stated by many people on this thread, and no options are acceptable to you... fair enough). Otherwise I would expect the same sort of thing to happen after uninstall as with any Windows app.
 
Anyway I hope Cake comes back with the response you are expecting but I wouldn't hold your breath to be absolutely honest with you.
 
> And can we please stop saying "make backups"
 
I think I wrote earlier maybe you missed this.... "yes I do understand it is not an option for you, sorry about that".
So I say again, sorry about that... Your only other real option is another PC or dual boot, or take a chance and see what happens.