When will Sonar Platinum cease support for Windows 7 ?

There's also a difference between "is supported" and "works on." IIRC at one point Cakewalk stopped support for Vista but you could still install SONAR on it, and when Cakewalk later updated the VST Scanner (which at that point didn't work on Vista), they updated it to work on Vista.  
 
That said, Windows 10 works fine here...better than Windows 7, and I was someone who stuck with W7 as long as I could. But Bitman nailed it; the question is what latitude Microsoft will allow. For example, if Cakewalk has to choose whether Platinum will support the updates for Windows 10 or Windows 7, not supporting the updates for Windows 10 would be a non-starter.

noynekker

bitman
I don't think Cakewalk would ever by choice kill SONAR on a particular OS, rather Microsoft dictates what OS their Visual C++ redistributable libraries will load on. Case in point x2 would load on xp, X2a not because cake updated to Microsoft's latest c++ compiler that had the multi-touch cake wanted to support, who's redistributable refused to load on xp for no other reason afaik,  just nope.
 
Microsoft is rumored to want to kill off 7 and 8.1 as well and just have this "Windows" (or win10)
 
For this reason I went against all I believe and updated my daw to 10 last week. Then promptly disabled the Windows Update Service.
 
 

Hey bitman, now that's a good trick, please share how, but won't the next windows update just turn it back on again ?

With it disabled it can't and won't go get an update.
My wife who went for win10 on here laptop did this a long time ago and her computer has never
shown evidence of updating with the "Please wait will windows configures updates" or whatever that momentous interruptus says.
 
She's pretty - darn smart.
 

How spooky - I just found the guts to upgrade from Win7 to Win10

I was running out of room on my 250gb SSD so upgraded to a 500gb SSD (Samsun Evo 850, which is great value & performance)

Her is my experience and the few wobble - but everything seems to have ended up well

First of all I cloned by existing C drive (with the win7 OS on it) to a new hard drive (connected via USB) using Macrium Reflect - a free utility that did an amazing job, even copying the hidden "restore" partition on my original hard drive

I then installed the new hard drive and made sure everything worked in Win7

I then upgraded to Win10 on the new hard drive (safe in the knowledge that if anything went wrong I could put the original hard drive back in and be where I started so it is a huge safety net to have - but as an added precaution I also created a disk image of my drives onto a separate external hard drive)

Everything went smoothly and here is a list of the "wobbles":

After installing the new hard drive Windows only saw it as the size of the old drive. This was easily overcome by "expanding the partition" in Disk Management so Windows now sees the whole drive

I needed to "re-authorise" my IK plugins (Amplitube etc.) as I was getting a regular "static sound" - this was easily done using IK's authorisation manager. I also needed to do the same for Addictive Drums 2, but this was also very easy

All other plugins (Waves, KOMPLETE Ultimate 10, Sonar etc. we're all fine and didn't need any attention at all)

The only other issue I had was that Win10 does not support the "KeepSafe" fingerprint protected folder I had on my hard drive - so I simply popped the old hard drive in, copied out the files I needed (as the PC was exactly as it was before the upgrade) and then went back to the new hard drive

I am very happy with the result and it is nice to know I am all "up to date"

I would say go for it but buy a new hard drive if you are using your PC for paid music work (as I am) because you can always get back to where you started by putting the original drive back in

Thanks to everyone for the great replies!  For those of you who turned off Windows update, I can understand why, but doesn't that make your system as insecure as a no-longer-supported Win7 (come Feb 2020)?  As I understand it, with the Pro and higher versions you can at least delay updates. 
 
Spare hard drive standing by for a go at it tomorrow, same approach as Boydie.
 
thanks again!!

trmusic
Well, the Windows 10 upgrade took two days.  And finally tonight, it finished.  And Sonar Platinum came up in Demo mode. 
 
great.

Try opening SONAR from the CCC.
 
Two days seems excessive. Took about 90 minutes for my laptop and a couple hours for my desktop. Then again W7 was up to date so that may have been a factor.

I tried going through offline activation.  I got the .dat file and imported it.  It didn't work.  Sonar popped up another "Demo Mode" message and nothing changed.

I've never been able to get Win 10 to work here with Sonar. For some reason after a day or two I'll get "Sonar.exe has stopped working"
Cakewalk doesn't have a clue what causes it. My other daws work fine.
I suspect it has something to do with my Presonus 44VSL, but it only affects Sonar.
I'm going to try one last time before the 29th, but I'm not optimistic.

trmusic
Craig?  Got any ideas for me?  I put in a help request but I need to work tonight.  Wouldn't have done this in the middle of two projects, but the M$ deadline gave me no choice.  :-/

You did clone your Windows 7 drive just before you updated to Windows 10, right? Just replace your Windows 10 drive with your Windows 7 clone, and you should be good to go.
Then again, I guess I just don't understand the rush to upgrade to W10. Is it because the OS is......free? Well, that's nice but, so what? The OS was never free before. SONAR was never free. This rush to upgrade is almost like the Y2k panic. "OMG!! OMG!! I gotta upgrade now while it's.....FREE!! It's gonna cost $$$$millions after July 29, 2016!!"  
 
C'mon guys, the cost to upgrade to Windows 10 Home from Vista is $119.00 right now. The chances of that price going up after July 29, 2016 are, methinks, pretty slim. So, you have a perfectly functioning Windows 7 DAW that you are perfectly comfortable with, and you risk mucking it up (especially at the last minute) because....OMG!! OMG!!....it's FREE??!!
 
trmusic, just put your Windows 7 cloned drive back in, and continue working - that is, of course, if your backup/clone attempt was truly successful. I really hope it was. Just don't let the OS upgrade get in the way of what you want and need to do. Now that you've taken the W7>W10 plunge, make the best of it. But for anyone that hasn't....
 
It's perfectly okay to wait. Seriously. Your Windows 7 DAW's performance (that you are already quite happy with) won't degrade monstrously after July 29, 2016. And, you'll be able to afford the upgrade in a year or two.....really...

Brian Walton

Earwax

trmusic
Craig?  Got any ideas for me?  I put in a help request but I need to work tonight.  Wouldn't have done this in the middle of two projects, but the M$ deadline gave me no choice.  :-/

C'mon guys, the cost to upgrade to Windows 10 Home from Vista is $119.00 right now. The chances of that price going up after July 29, 2016 are, methinks, pretty slim. So, you have a perfectly functioning Windows 7 DAW that you are perfectly comfortable with, and you risk mucking it up (especially at the last minute) because....OMG!! OMG!!....it's FREE??!!
 

Why throw away $119 when you can get it for free?  I hope you are not a financial adviser.  
 
I haven't upgraded to Win10 yet either, but I'd also like to avoid paying $120 down the road.  

And I hope you're not a reading coach.
Try actually reading everything I wrote. Free is great if, among other things (a) There is no chance of screwing up your current work situation, (b) The free item is usually ridiculously expensive, (c) The free item is critical to your workflow - without it, you can't work, (d) The free item is not critical to your workflow, but you have time to work out any unforeseen kinks in using the free item without interrupting your workflow.
 
If paying $119.00 for your OS is throwing away money... well..... OK. And, any good financial advisor will tell you that rushing into any investment/investment service without the proper planning, and without regard for current circumstances and potential negative outcomes, is not a prudent move, even if the investment/investment service is "free". In the OP's case, his decision caused him some consternation and interrupted his workflow. Others have found themselves in a similar situation. I hope the OP followed the advice of some, and backed up/cloned his W7 HDD.
 
As for you, since waiting is such horrific advise, worthy of snide remarks, why haven't you upgraded?/ What are you waiting for?? Jump.....

thom,
 
I am seriously glad it is coming together for you.  As I said before, you took the leap, now make the best of it! Others have reported some gains in performance since switching to W10 - hopefully that pans out for you too.
 
Good luck with your projects!