Ditto - I have the app and plugin installed on my C: and the samples on an external SATA drive.   Works well.
 

I installed my samples to my F Library drive with no issue. It did create a folder for GPO5 called Program files that I wouldn't have done.
 
It would be good to know if GPO4 has things that 5 doesn't! I haven't installed GPO4 on my studio desktop (it came after I upgraded to 4), but will if that is the case.
 
Michael

I have always installed the program on the same drive as my OS. The samples library always go on a secondary drive. This is done with a custom install instead of the default. Of course, some synths have trouble locating the sample data if it was installed anywhere other than with the synth program.  DimPro comes to mind. Other people here have gotten it to work but I just cannot get DimPro to find the samples unless they are on the OS drive with the synth. The same with Rapture. Maybe I'll try it again since all the upgrades the last couple of years.
BTW, both my desktop and my laptop have internal secondary drives so I can keep my samples off of my OS drive.

WTF ALERT! I thought I would make the jump and Un-install GPO 4 since it was totally unnecessary to have it eating up room on my hard drive. YIKES! Loaded up a project and no older projects loaded the samples in Aria player. The names of the instruments were there but because the samples were gone, NO SOUNDS? 
It's not over yet, campers!
I tried to delete Aria and Sonar crashed so hard it lost the drivers for the Studio-Captures AND Sonar would not start up until I re-booted!!!!! After the third re-boot, I figured out that I had to just delete the entire audio track with the old plugin, recreate the audio track, re-choose Aria Player, and reload the instruments!!!!!!!!
Now I have to spend weeks revisiting hundreds of legacy projects for my live gigs just to use what I already had. Oh, well, I was going to have that job ahead of me anyway as I wanted to try out the GOS on some tunes. I do have some that Miroslav 2 will stay on.
This has been a huge cluster %=_÷*&^ !!!!!!!!!!!
What ever you do, DO NOT UNINSTALL GPO4 IF YOU VALUE YOUR SANITY!!!

Sidroe, better take it up with MakeMusic, as Garritan clearly said: "GPO 5 is more than just a major upgrade, it is almost a new product altogether. However, it includes all the previous sounds of GPO 4 so previous projects can still sound the same." (see my post above)

For $50 I'll definitely spring for the upgrade. I wonder if anyone has any sources for Sonar project files or even MIDI files that exploit the controller features of the Garritan libraries. I've not been that wild about GPO 4 sounds, but really need some strings now for some projects and am hoping GPO 5 has some improvements. I would like to study some actual MIDI tracks to see the controller techniques at work. 

Another interesting thing, at least one I hadn't noticed before, is the ability to play Camel Alchemy through Garritan Aria. Those sweet Alchemy sounds pop up in Aria's instrument list among Garritan's Personal and Instant Orchestras.

Exactly, kk1!

Newest is 1.8.7 released last week.

sorry you lost that info siddroe... they did say it was a different program although they called it an upgrade, so I'd be pretty PO'd about it not using the previous version.  I started rendering all vsti tracks years ago after losing many tracks to instruments that I no longer have.  
 
Not to hijack the topic, but can someone offer some sites to read for a "never done symphonic orchestra before" mixing geek?  Much of an orchestra is foreign to me... abbreviations and names for instruments, voicing and layering, etc.

Mark and Michael, maybe have a look over at the Northern Sounds forum:
http://www.northernsounds.../forumdisplay.php?f=77

kitekrazy1     Where did you see/find that 1.8.7? Perhaps that's not the Windows 10 64 bit version.
Do you have a link to it?
My Aria Engine shows a v1.8.6 and my Garritan shows that as v1.860
 
Michael
 
EDIT***   I opened GPO5 stand alone and clicked on the engine update and got it there.
http://ariaengine.com/support/aria-engine-update/
 
It is not anywhere else on the Garritan site yet.

Fleer
Mark and Michael, maybe have a look over at the Northern Sounds forum:
http://www.northernsounds.../forumdisplay.php?f=77

Thanks, I think that is primarily an orchestration course. I'm not sure it addresses mixing. But then I've never "taken" it, as I have 5 or 6 books on orchestration that I use (among them Rimsky-Korsakov's), so I could be wrong. There's really two parts to the question: Orchestration, and Mixing. They do indeed affect each other. Poor orch. is going to lead to bad mixes. No mixing can compensate for it. But good orch. can also be obscured by bad mixing. both skills are needed. I personally feel the need for better mixing skills more than orch. I guess the same rules apply though, whether you're mixing a rock band or symphony orchestra. The latter is just harder, since there are so many more instruments that need to be heard.

I bought them on special for $75 if I remember correctly. I was just looking for some new strings as I only had Garritan at the time and the advertising sounded pretty good. They are useable but out of the box they need a little coaxing to my taste. They are nice just to drop them in DimPro and go to work.
However, they do sound a little long in tooth compared to the newer strings that are available now. I find myself using Miroslav 2 and GPO 5 more than anything but I will probably continue to layer them with better libraries. If you don't have strings at all they are worth the sell price but $150 is a little steep IMO.
Michael, I have the Korsakov book as well. I have boxs of orchestration technique books. I started out at age 10 to be a classical pianist and studied thru my teens. You are correct assuming that the same skills are needed no matter what kind of music it is.

I jumped ship to guitar playing thanks to The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix! I still pull out my piano books from time to time but everyone knows me as a guitarist mainly.