Sonar & Windows 10 upgrade from 7 Question

This qualifies as pretty basic, I know, but is it accurate that upon upgrading I will have to reinstall and authorize Sonar and all my software? Yes, it is one time but it is also a pain. 😀

Thanks,

Steve

Doing an in place upgrade, ie just letting Windows 10 install over the top of Windows 7 you 'should have no problems at all providing your hardware is compatible and the drivers work under Windows 10 or there are Win10 drivers available etc. I done 6 upgrades, all in place over Windows 7 Pro, varying hardware, software etc, 2 were purpose built DAW's, music only, and didn't have one issue, didn't have to reinstall a thing. Everything just worked and to be honest I would never want to go back to Windows 7. Some will say that a clean install is the best, and that is probably true, although it can be a lot of work and time, especially when the in place upgrades work so well and with out issue. It's been a couple of months now not a problem in sight, all computers run faster, boot faster, are as stable as, Win 7 was stable as well, but Windows 10 is just better, end of story.

I did an in place upgrade and didn't have to reauthorise any software. I haven't found a reason to convert to a clean install so I've saved myself the hassel of all the reinstallation and reauthorisation. As I don't intend to roll back to my previous OS I've deleted the previous Windows Old folder to reclaim disk space from my previous OS install.

I did both an upgrade (laptop) and clean install (studio pc), and have not had any issues. As mentioned earlier, check that your devices are Win10 compatible. 
All the best.

I did upgrade-not clean install. I did have to re-authorize Addictive Drums 2 and Addictive Keys. No big deal. You just run the XLN installer and it re-authorizes for you. Other than that, no problems!

BTW do the in place upgrade using external media either DVD or USB.  Using Windows Update can cause a bad install.

SMcNamara
 
Thanks for the confirmation.  I semi-regularly do image backups and was considering one already, but I did read that the Windows 10 upgrade transfers the license from W7 to W10, which I conclude means reinstalling an image backup would not help because the license no longer belongs to W7.  Presumably this is just being hyper-careful, but thoughts on that???

I always do an image backup with acronis before any OS upgrade.
Best hassle free way to upgrade from Win7 is to download the Windows 10 install media and burn to DVD or copy to USB key.

What ever you do, make sure:
a) Your BIOS is not set to boot automatically from CD.
b) You run Windows 10 setup (on DVD) within Windows 7. Do not boot off installation media!
 
In theory you can roll back from Win10 to 7.
 
A lot of people don't do this but once upgrading and you have your license key I strongly recommend doing a completely clean install afterwards with Win10 formatting the hard drive (or OS partition), assuming you've backed up first. Clean installs are good installs. Check you've got your product key first, and windows is active. The license should be stored in the MS cloud.
 
When you've finally got Win10 you will probably need to update your display driver straight away from third party website, and probably other drivers as well. Windows update probably won't serve you all the updated drivers you need.