Getting rid of "ghost devices" seems to have fixed my Sonar Platinum shutdown errors!!

Background -
Fresh Sonar Platinum installed on a new i7 machine running Windows 8.1, 16GB RAM, individual SSD's for OS and sample drives.
Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 audio interface, Novation Impulse 49 as my primary controller, using Novation Automap 4.8.
Latest release of all drivers. 
 
Pretty happy with this latest home-built; last one lasted 7 years before retiring it, so I should be set for a while!! 
 
 
For the most part, everything with Sonar Platinum has been running great.
Right now, I'm basically just running some pretty basic projects to test Sonar features, different softsynths, Automap, etc.
Everything has been running great, EXCEPT -
Just about every time I shutdown Sonar, I would get a Sonar shutdown error.
Sometimes saving the project first would make a difference, sometimes it wouldn't.
Consistently, when Sonar had an error on shutdown, it would leave "ghost" mappings in Automap, which would not function correctly with my Impulse keyboard the next time I started Sonar (the workaround for that was to go into Task Manager, force a shutdown of Automap, then restart it before starting Sonar again.  Not difficult, just annoying...)
 
Submitted a problem report to Cakewalk a couple of days ago to make it "official".
 
So, I was searching through some of the latest threads looking for answers , and specifically got to this recent post from Craig: 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3173428
 
Out of curiosity, I went through the steps mentioned in the article he referenced (and wrote!), and to my surprise found several "ghost" USB devices listed, including additional devices for my primary Impulse keyboard, audio interface, an outboard sound module, and a secondary MIDI controller.  
 
I deleted those "ghost" devices, and immediately noticed a couple of improvements running Sonar -
Not only does it load some sampler-heavy projects noticeably quicker (yes, noticeable even with SSD's!), but it also "seems" to have cured the issues I was having with Sonar shutdown errors!
 
So, FWIW -
Maybe it's just a fluke - and I probably jinxed it by talking about it  - but for now, I'm a pretty happy Sonar user!!
 
Randy

I'm intentionally "bumping" this thread since it may have some bearing on some issues currently being experienced by one of our forum members.
 
@ Konrad -
 
The USB disconnects issues you are having with your MIDI controllers may very well be corrected by getting rid of "ghost" USB devices.  When I followed the steps Craig mentioned in the thread / article I linked to in my first post, I was surprised how many duplicate entries existed for some of my USB MIDI devices.  Getting rid of those "ghost" entries seems to have cured a LOT of issues for me.
 
One note to add when uninstalling "ghost devices" ~
Occasionally one of the "ghost" devices would not uninstall while the "good" device was still connected and/or powered.  The work around for me was to take turn off / unplug the MIDI device, uninstall the "ghost" device, then plug my MIDI device back in.  Works great!!
 
Now hopefully THIS thread won't be swamped by people arguing whether it's posted in the correct forum or not...
 
Randy
 

@rivers88
 
I really appreciate people who are more interested in solving problems and helping other do the same than subjecting the community to immature venting about how much SONAR sucks, when the problem is either with their system or pilot error.