I currently have X3 Producer . The purchase literatures says that I will be purchasing Sonar Platinum with lifetime updates. Is this a whole new program or considered an upgrade from X3 Producer? I have tons of plugins / songs etc. that I have done with X3 producer. Has anyone had issues with having to re-install , re-map or any other performance type compatibility issues between plug ins / versions , current songs not finding the original plugins etc... ? I am always skeptical when downloading new versions , updates , upgrades etc...  ??? Any feedback would be much appreciated !!!!

The upgrade to Platinum is a whole new program in that the SONAR program itself installs in a separate directory. The process does update shared utilities and plug-ins which came with X3. The is no need to reinstall anything just leave X3 in place. Platinum is backward compatible with X3. The plug-ins, content and projects you have created should work just as before if not better in Platinum.

Great!!! Thanks for the quick reply.  So am I safe to assume that the install is pretty much "behind the scenes" ? How much of  learning curve is there ? ie. Getting used to new visuals , menu items etc..

Platinum has been built on the X3 foundation.
 
Probably the best way to acquaint yourself with the new features is to read the e-zine release notes for each update
 
http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Rolling-Updates#start
 
 

I am not sure what "behind the scenes" means. In addition to quite a few registry entries a Platinum install creates version specific folders in Program Files, ProgramData, AppData and Cakewalk Content. As mentioned above, it will also update most if not all the common utilities and plug-ins bundled with X3. When the update is done, X3 will still be available along with Platinum. Both will use the same Plug-in Manager, vst scanner and plug-ins. There will be a few new plug-ins which X3 will not be able to run but everything which shipped with X3 will still run in X3.
 
Coming from X3, you will be very familiar with Platinum. There are some new features but the basics are the same. A couple of the UI changes are almost immediately noticed such as Recycling Plug-in Windows. Most of the differences are documented here, the previous link came from this page.