Hey everyone,
I'm planning a massive studio pc upgrade and along with everything else I am updating, going from Sonar version 8 Producer to Sonar Platinum.  My studio pc was made in 2007 and back then keeping your studio pc offline for the performance and security was certainly worth the minor hassle of online activation and updating.  Looking at how things have changed, I am wondering if it's even possible to keep your studio pc offline anymore as a lot of newer software seems to require a constant online connection to go with their subscription services and I am no longer seeing offline activation for various software being an option.  
 
My offline studio pc, despite it's age, still operates just like it did when I first turned it on so I am inclined to keep my new studio pc offline if it's at all possible.  I don't plan on using any subscription services (maybe EW's composer cloud) and prefer to pay for what I want up front but in the case of buying a digital download and transferring it from my online PC to my Offline Studio Pc is having an offline PC feasible?  

I keep mine offline apart from those times that I need to up date Sonar or some other piece of software.
 
This is accomplished by plugging in an inexpensive wireless dongle & connecting via Wi-Fi.
 
I know there are many users who choose to keep their machines online at all times without issue, I'm just naturally cautious/paranoid

I don't make my living with Sonar so I don't worry about it. If I was running a commercial operation I would be more careful, but so far no issues being online. I also do regular backups of my working drives so even a catastrophe can be recovered from.

If you are a W7 user and don't care for W10 it will keep you from accidentally upgrading to W10.

You can create a shortcut for your internet connection and put that on your desktop, then simply disable/enable the connection at will by right-clicking the icon and selecting one or the other.
 
Also, if online all the time, you can set your Widows update to only fire off when you want, not automatically. This prevents competition for resources when you are working with Sonar. This can also be configured to prevent the automatic installation of unwanted updates (e.g. Win 10).
 

Mine is always online.
 
My biggest problem is the auto-backup starting during a session and grabbing all the disk bandwidth.

Mine is always online as well, running Win10.  I'm not sure what was meant by "auto-backup" in a previous post.  The only thing I've experienced is with installed software, that is programmed to do such.  Win10 can be set to not intrude in the middle of recording, or at least I'm not seeing a problem on this end.  The updates are auto, but you can determine when the OS is updated.

Bristol_Jonesey
I keep mine offline apart from those times that I need to up date Sonar or some other piece of software.
 
This is accomplished by plugging in an inexpensive wireless dongle & connecting via Wi-Fi.
 
I know there are many users who choose to keep their machines online at all times without issue, I'm just naturally cautious/paranoid

+1 for Bristol Joneseys approach, plus I have a second wireless network that is not connected to the Internet so that I can still use wireless remotes and editors for studio devices. Rock solid:)

Another +1 for Mr. Jonesy's approach. I'm only online as needed.
 
If you upgrade to Platinum and are not able to connect your DAW computer to the internet, be aware that you won't be able to use Addictive Drums. XLN requires an internet connection to activate their software. I begged and pleaded with them when I first got AD, but to no avail. lol !

would advise you to stay offline like you've been doing succesfully/satisfied....
I went from always online to offline not long ago.
Windows Updates, McAfee and Internet Explorer were sometimes causing problems on my computer.