SonicExplorer
You guys can poke fun at me all you want, I'm staying on XP with my trusty RME interface.  

 
Well there you have it, an RME interface. It will work with anything 
 
No one's going to poke fun at you, the object is to make music...not be an IT professional! But, I was raised during the days of tape, so I probably have a different perspective. Maintaining my computer system is soooo much easier than maintaining a multitrack tape machine.

Anderton

SonicExplorer
You guys can poke fun at me all you want, I'm staying on XP with my trusty RME interface.  

 
Well there you have it, an RME interface. It will work with anything 
 
No one's going to poke fun at you, the object is to make music...not be an IT professional! But, I was raised during the days of tape, so I probably have a different perspective. Maintaining my computer system is soooo much easier than maintaining a multitrack tape machine.

Ha, me too, the tape days all during the 80's!  To me this whole DAW concept and being able to do just about everything inside a computer from home is still mind boggling to me.  Yeah, when I think back how many times I'd have to calibrate machines, clean channel boards, repair outboard gear, hunt down patch/cabling issues and much more....well....a DAW is a walk in the park in comparison.  And that doesn't even begin to get into all the operational advantages.  Still though I get terribly frustrated at times not understanding how to "map over" my old methods onto DAW operation.  And struggle with computers in general at times.  Thank God for this forum, people on here have been invaluable.
 
Sorry to the OP for the slight detour.
 
Sonic

SonicExplorer
I'm on XP and staying there.  LoL
 
If you find an OS version you really like, and have all the DAW tools you need, then just make backups of everything to be sure you can always rebuild a machine if needed.  I just did this recently - 100% brand new parts except for the motherboard.  Had very little issues except for one wrapper component that wouldn't run in multi-processor mode correctly and caused me a lot of headache to track down.  But that aside it was LOT easier than rebuilding a whole new DAW using the latest OS version and having to repurchase a bunch of new software, etc.  And worst of all, having to re-learn it all.  Not to mention spend a ton of time stomping out bugs and glitches, always wondering if you'll ever really be able to get everything working smoothly.   Uh...no thanks, not for me!  I don't know how you guys do it frankly.  If I kept updating operating systems and plugs and host software and drivers and hardware there's no way I'd ever get any real work done, and I'd be spending a fortune in the process.  LoL
 
You guys can poke fun at me all you want, I'm staying on XP with my trusty RME interface.  
 
Sonic

I sympathise with you here, as the move from X1 to X3, and then to SPLAT was VERY expensive for me.
 
I had an Win 98 system running 2 x Yamaha DS2416 cards with Pro Audio 7. I'd used on a Cirrus 166Mhz with 128Mb RAM (which could easily cope with recording 16 simultaneous tracks).
 
By Sonar 3 I'd gone through Windows 2000, to XP with an Athlon 750 with 1.5GB RAM (which coped with 32 simultaneous tracks) and finally a dual core Athlon 4000 with 4GB RAM.
 
I hardly ever used plugins during this time, as the two DS2416's more or less had everything I needed: 48 channels with dynamics + 4 band fully parametric EQ on every channel, and four effects processors.... and all my synths were hardware.
 
For X3 I moved to Windows 7 which meant getting a newer motherboard that would still support my DS2416 cards. I opted for the Asus P8B75V with an Intel i5 3750, as this has 3 PCI slots that fully support the voltages needed for the DS2416.
 
The move to 64bit meant replacing my DS2416 cards with my Focusrite 18i20. At this point my machine was fast enough handle all the mixing & effects in-the-box, and I've just recently retired all my hardware synths.
 
Many a time I've looked back at how much easier it was when all I had was my Yamaha MT8X 8 track tape recorder, Music-X on the Amiga for MIDI, and a PPS-100 for MIDI tape sync.
 
I'm still on the fence with Windows 10 vs Windows 7.
 
 
Windows 7 has been rock solid (with the exception of the flakey windows update system), just like XP was. To be honest, I know Vista got a beating but I used it for 10 years on a development laptop with no issues. I never tried it with my DAW system though.
 
I really like using Windows 10. Updates are far more reliable, but it's a real PITA when major updates come along - i.e. settings reverting back, having to re-authorise software. It does FEEL snappier to me though compared to Windows 7, so I tend to stick to Windows 10 with Windows 7 as a fallback.
 
 

msmcleod
I sympathise with you here, as the move from X1 to X3, and then to SPLAT was VERY expensive for me.

The same here, even when I entered the DAW field later coming from dedicated hardware.
 

msmcleod
Many a time I've looked back at how much easier it was when all I had was my Yamaha MT8X 8 track tape recorder, Music-X on the Amiga for MIDI, and a PPS-100 for MIDI tape sync.

Have the same nostalgia feelings, even if my hardware was a bit different (Tascam 38 8 track tape recorder, Tascam M-208 mixer, DX7II, Yamaha QX3 sequencer, ...). In those years I was really productive in making music (no annoying computer updates).
 

msmcleod
I really like using Windows 10. Updates are far more reliable, but it's a real PITA when major updates come along - i.e. settings reverting back, having to re-authorise software.

I have Windows 10 on both of my computers. But after the current Windows update I regret that I had not setup my tower with Windows 7, because I always have a lot of trouble after each update of Windows 10. Not that things cannot be fixed, but I always lose 1 or 2 days to reset everything (reiterate system settings, removing bloatware, ...).
 
Marc

marled
Have the same nostalgia feelings, even if my hardware was a bit different (Tascam 38 8 track tape recorder, Tascam M-208 mixer, DX7II, Yamaha QX3 sequencer, ...). In those years I was really productive in making music (no annoying computer updates).

 
Going back with memories to the hardware days is giving me faster heartbeat... yep that's nostalgia :)
 

marled
I have Windows 10 on both of my computers. But after the current Windows update I regret that I had not setup my tower with Windows 7, because I always have a lot of trouble after each update of Windows 10. Not that things cannot be fixed, but I always lose 1 or 2 days to reset everything (reiterate system settings, removing bloatware, ...).

 
I'm still on W7 but do have plans to buy a new laptop soon with W10 installed. What would be the necessary steps to remove bloatware and update settings? Thanks.

King Conga
[...] Finally, is there any particular flavor of Win10 to install as there was on previous OS ver.

I think there are different flavors as before, as I understood it many prefer the PRO version as it gives better control over OS updates. With the HOME edition I think you don't have any choice in that matter, updates just sort of happens. 

SonicExplorer
I'm on XP and staying there.  LoL
 [snip]
You guys can poke fun at me all you want, I'm staying on XP with my trusty RME interface.  
 
Sonic

I see you are a wise man. May I ask about the specifics for which MB you chose ? and why ?

SonicExplorer
I'm on XP and staying there.  LoL
 [snip]
You guys can poke fun at me all you want, I'm staying on XP with my trusty RME interface.  
 
Sonic

I see you are a wise man. May I ask about the specifics for which MB you chose ? and why ?

"I'm still on W7 but do have plans to buy a new laptop soon with W10 installed. What would be the necessary steps to remove bloatware and update settings? Thanks."
 
I bought a new laptop last year, a Dell Inspiron 15 5577 (7th generation i5) that is sold as a "gaming" laptop with an M.2 SSD (fast).  I wanted it for on-site recordings.  I tried tweaking it for audio recording including removing Dell added software and even some other software and settings but could never get it clean and had Latency Mon issues and some dropouts.  I restored the original Dell factory image and installed a second SSD.  I only installed Win 10 and minimum drivers on the new SSD, and Sonar, nothing else and it works great for recording.  I still have the original Dell install if I want to use it for general PC work.  Its set up as dual boot for whatever use I want. 

SonicExplorer
I'm on XP and staying there.  LoL
 

I sympathize as I stayed on an XP Clevo laptop for years running Sonar 8 until the motherboard became too 'glitchy'. I loved that old machine so much I bought a new motherboard second-hand and had it shipped from the US to Europe. One reason I kept it was the near zero latency using Firewire - I did a lot of reading up on the subject back in the day, and the old Firewire boards were far superior for audio processing than the later ones (something to do with Texas Instruments on-board circuits). When I was forced to switch laptops, I went with an older HP with Firewire so I could keep my Edirol audio card in use - HP running Sonar 8 in Win 7 was smooth, on the upgrade to W10 I had a lot of issues with the Firewire. I would sporadically have to reinstall the drivers (often hanging or failing), even had to hack the drivers to recognise W10 as support for Edirol products ended at W8. Making music became a ball-ache.....until I updated to SPLAT and they updated the WASAPI drivers- suddenly even my old USB-1 keyboard had zero latency (in XP it was less than useless) and the Firewire issue seemed to be resolved. I now play piano through the new Sonar BandLab with Zero latency and zero glitches - when I need to do vocals or guitars I plug in the old Edirol and get zero latency too - can't complain really.Windows 10 works for me.
Also, I now have access to all the great new sound libraries and VST3 products that XP cannot access. As much as it is good to have a solid go-to setup, it's also nice to bring in some new sounds every once in a while. With XP, I was limited to what I had - it could never expand.
 
On a side note - when Sonar's future was in doubt, I reinstalled Sonar 8 onto my machine (just in case the servers went down) and it was not a nice experience. After the fluidity of SPLAT, Sonar 8 felt slow and labored and clunky. I also noticed latency was enormous with the WASAPI drivers, making mixing on anything but the external sound card impossible. What I love about my W10/Sonar setup now is that I can setup recordings in an instant - very important for me, as I have very little time - and play about with mixes using the on-board sound card instead of always having to set up an external soundcard. All this makes me more portable and productive.