How do I get the most from my Samson C01U USB Mic?

Welcome to the forum.
The best way to get the most out of you USB mic is to return it to the store and use the money to buy an audio interface designed for recording and a good dynamic mic, like a Shure SM 57 or 58.
These devices are problematic at best since the mic acts like a one-way sound card and that causes synching problems, since the mic and the stock sound card both want to be in control.

Yeah, things are tough all over.
 
Here are a few items that may help:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcAtPmLtRns
 
http://www.cakewalk.com/support/kb/reader.aspx?ID=2007012937
 
From the Cakewalk FAQ: 10) My USB Mic does not record.
USB mic's will work best in MME mode. Go to Options | Audio | Advanced and put a check where it says Always use MME Interface (or change the Driver Mode to MME). Close the program and re-open it. The Wave Profiler should run tests. You should now have more devices listed under MIDI Devices and Audio Drivers.
You may not be able to monitor that Mic while recording unless you use MME drivers, unfortunately MME creates a delay or latency. If you are able to use WDM and still get a delay when using (Input Echo or Input Monitoring), check out this link for more info on Decreasing Latency.
A third option would be using ASIO4ALL drivers. You can try out ASIO4ALL from www.ASIO4ALL.com These 3rd party drivers are a good solution for generic or OEM sound cards that have unreliable WDM drivers and/or nonexistent ASIO support. Once installed open Cakewalk and go to Options | Audio | Advanced and change the Driver mode to ASIO. You may need to go to Options | MIDI Devices and shut down the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth in order for this to work. Try using the input echo button on your audio track.
 
Good luck!
Oh, and you can have SONAR LE and MC on the same computer. I don't recall the main differences between the 2, but you may like the way SLE looks better than MC (or vice versa), and both programs should run all the DX and VST instruments and effects equally well.
 
 

I was planning a smart*** remark and say that you could use it as a paper weight.... but I decided not to....

Greg  is correct. That is the best option, but if that is NOT an option for you.....

you can always try to make it work. Since this has been a recurring problem here, another member wrote a solution and the mods have posted it as a Sticky in one of the forums. To save you the time of finding it... here's the link to......  the USB mic solution.

hope it helps.