I have a folder for every Sonar project I have. Or more accurately, for every song I'm producing. As I'm sure you know, in each is a subfolder called Audio with a gajillion .wav files in it. The main folder has the .cwp, a cwp.assets, and auto-save copies. Sometimes I have saved my project off with a different name when I've wanted to try something different I'm not sure will work out. Or I will do a re-mix which I will want to be a different project.
 
So my main project folder has something like:
MySong.cwp
MySong.cwp.assets
Auto-save Copy of MySong.cwp
Auto-save Copy of MySong.cwp.assets
MySong-2016Remix.cwp
MySong-2016Remix.cwp.assets
Auto-save Copy of MySong-2016Remix.cwp
Auto-save Copy of MySong-2016Remix.cwp.assets
[] Audio
 
All these projects are sharing the same wav files from the /Audio folder, right? Over time some of my projects have a bunch of different versions of a song, each with their own cwp and assets files, and because I've forgotten which project is which, when I go to work on the song I'm having to resort to sorting the folder by Date Modified and selecting the most recent cwp, assuming that is the current "best" version. This morning I opened a folder on a song I haven't worked on in months, and saw that I had a project named MySongAttempt1.cwp that had a NEWER modified date than MySongAttempt2.cwp! Uh oh. So I've decided I'd better get organized here.
 
I'd like to have one definitive version of a song, and to save all the earlier versions somewhere else, so that when I open the folder I will only see the one cwp (plus any auto-save copies), and there will be a folder called "previous versions" or something that has all the older cwps. Before I do this though, I want to know for sure I don't start moving cwp files around and inadvertently de-couple them from the wav files in the Audio folder. 
 
1. Can I move cwp files around and trust they will still be able to find the Audio folder files that belong to them?
2. Am I in danger of breaking anything if I rename a project file from Windows Explorer?
3. Are there best practices I should be following for these use cases?
 
Thanks!

Moving cwp files out of that structure at the OS level will break the relationship between the moved cwp and the audio files. Cwp files using the default per-project audio folder layout as shown above use a relative pointer to the Audio folder.
 
It is possible to make a complete snapshot of a single project  and the associated audio by using the "Save As" in X3. Make sure to enable the "Copy all audio with project" when performing the "Save As" and save the project to a new folder.  This will copy the project and only the audio files referenced in the project to a new project and per-project audio folder.

Thanks, that's good to know. I've been doing "Save As..." every time I save a project with a new name, and I see the "Copy all audio with project" is selected by default, so since my new project is typically saved in the same folder, is Sonar actually making copies of all the Audio files and sticking them in the same audio folder?

"Save As" does not copy the audio if the audio folder is not changed. Create a new folder for the project and there should be a new audio folder created under it as shown in the project and audio path entries at the bottom of the dialog. These will be the targets for the "Save As" process. Create the new project folder by either using the project path entry, the browse button to the right of the project path entry or the navigation and create folder buttons at the top of the dialog.

I see, I've tried that and it is working as you say. So then is the recommended best practice for saving multiple versions of a piece to copy the whole enchilada every time including the audio folder? This is going to take up a lot of disk space, but if I have to, I will. 
 
What about saving just the project files and not copying the audio? That way if I ever want to open that old project again, I could just copy it back to the main folder. Or is it possible that audio files have changed since then and that old project could get all confused?

The safe way is to create a full copy of the project using "Save As." The new project contains only the audio referenced in the saved project file. The size may be reduced by applying trimming on all clips before saving and enabling "Create one file per clip" to the right of the "Copy all audio with project" option.

I've been using this method for rationalising my projects for years and it works like a dream.
 
Also, if you are sure you're never going to go back to the original versions you have the option of either deleting them or moving them to a backup or external drive, reclaiming space on your audio drive

I think the key is to be more disciplined in naming your CWP files.  I generally have a base name then append a version number to it (e.g. MySongV17.cwp) and for the most part keep them in the same root folder (one per project) so I only have one audio subfolder per project.  That way you're not relying on timestamps but not wasting disk space having multiple copies of the same audio (this assumes you have a good backup strategy so having multiple copies isn't needed for that).  I'll increment the version number when I feel that I've done a lot of work on a project or if I'm about to do some major reworking.  I've yet to reach V99 but if you think that might be an issue you might want to start at V001.  
 
AMB