Sorry if I'm missing something obvious, but I'm running Sonar Platinum x64 on Windows 7 x64 SP1 and I'm really satisfied with the system stability and operating environment.  What incentive do I have to migrate to Win 10?  Grateful for any enlightenment.

I honestly was in the same boat as you. Due to some issues i rebuilt a new comp and it was just easier and cheaper to pick up windows 8.1 and wasnt as bad as i thought but i severely missed my windows 7. i now upgraded to 10 and i love it man, it picked what little good came out of 8 and went back to more of the feel of windows 7. It looks and operates more like the old style windows such as 7 and below with the smoothness and crisp of new generation.  
 
no more fly out windows when u move your mouse wrong or anything. It honestly just feels smoother and crisper than windows 7 and 8. It seems to respond to commands much faster and seems to handle multi tasking better, but i soppose that varies computer to computer. It runs Sonar like a champ on my end anyways. My big projects that i produced on windows 7 work perfect on windows 10 and even seem to even operate at a lower CPU power. I love it man, i loved windows 7. Did not like 8 much. I think they did great with 10.
 
Just my personal opinion. I have no hard facts or statistics or whatever to back up my statements. 

I think its Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 combined with the best of both. It boots super fast too. I have it on my desktop my laptop and my tablet. It works beautifully on all of them.
 
There is no longer a forced distinction between apps and programs. Under 8.1 I used Classic Shell to make it more to my way of doing things. I don't need it with Win 10. 

bitSync
Sorry if I'm missing something obvious, but I'm running Sonar Platinum x64 on Windows 7 x64 SP1 and I'm really satisfied with the system stability and operating environment.  What incentive do I have to migrate to Win 10?  Grateful for any enlightenment.

Don't upgrade.  You'll be wasting valuable time and money.  If your system is working well, and doing what you need/want it to do, leave it alone.  Upgrading the OS is a major undertaking involving support calls, new drivers, new configurations, troubleshooting issues, etc.   Make music instead.  You'll be happier.  I'm running Sonar Platinum x64 on Windows 7 and it is running well also.  Isn't that good enough?
 
Jerry
http://www.jerrygerber.com

Windows 8.1/10 seems to handle multiprocessing better than Windows 7.
 
But the huge reason is it's a free support upgrade. Windows is only supported for a finite lifespan, and you will find people will eventually stop developing for Windows 7, probably sooner than you think.
 
If you are clever you will upgrade before you have to pay for it (around 11 months time), and wait at least until next year for the bugs to die down and driver support to be improved. Before you do it make sure you back up though.
 
Cheers..

(Edited for autocorrect typo)

I believe any new operating system will boot faster because it sheds the startup bloat acquired over the years of using the old operating system.  ?
 
I was not tempted to upgrade to Windows 7 because I wanted to avoid the "bleeding edge" - but I'm very happy to hear reports of it working well for Sonar users!
 
cheers,
-Tom

You have no incentive.
I actually rolled back (recovered) from Win10 to my previous Win 7, and it all worked surprisingly well.
 
The killer features for me were:

• uncontrollable Windows update
• a bunch of additional processes running that couldn't be turned off (easily)
• rumours of data collection and internet bandwidth occupation

But your mileage may vary. It's not a bad operating system as far as I can tell (apart from the aforementioned) but it certainly isn't intrinsically better,  especially for a DAW.
 
my 2c

Just one more happy Win10 user.  The upgrade was brainlessly easy.  When it was done doing its thing, everything was where it belonged, all programs and devices worked and the computer itself is snappy and responsive.  I was coming from 7 which I loved, and I have no regrets with 10.

I have had difficulties with 10, but I do love it.  I really believe everything seems faster, but I'm still having curious driver issues and I think MS will actually cave on these forced driver updates.   
 
There's no harm in waiting, but as of now, I'm really happy with it (ala XP & 7).

stickman393
The killer features for me were:

• uncontrollable Windows update

Just curious... do you have Windows 7 Home or Windows 7 Pro?
 
If you have Pro, those updates are not uncontrollable. That's only for the Home users.