Offline is just a couple of clicks away.   XLN is a bad thing, like so many other 'features' CW offers for which they are very likely paid some money.     One fairly new feature of software authorization:  whether your internet adapter is enabled or disabled is locked in to the authorization scheme -- I have to remember to enable the internet for Melodyne Studio and disable the internet for SpectraLayers Pro, otherwise they refuse to start.
 
Generally, for software that is years old, I see no reason to enable ANY updates.     I'm quite content with windows 7, and I vigorously monitor the horrible update schemes from Adobe and the other internet vampires.

Sheanes
[...] Internet Explorer were sometimes causing problems on my computer.
 

The only program to blue screen me is IE, and often associated with YouTube. Never dug into that one but IE I have learned to steer clear of.

I've always been online via a wired Ethernet connection.

Never an issue.
Set antivirus to not scan Sonar and plugin folders etc
Some antivirus much more friendly than others. You choose.
Now on Win 10 and when setup properly then no interference from updates and backups etc.

I live dangerous and also have an iLok.

Authorisations and the like aside, I don't know how I'd manage not being online on my DAW - file exchange with collaborators, uploading mp3s to website, searching for a sample to use on a track and so on.

Assuming no performance (eg. DPC) or interference issues (I had a network adapter that glitched the power at one time that got picked up by the audio interface!), there's no real good reason to stay offline now (the whole 'I might lose my data' argument is pretty stupid, or you'd get *no* businesses connecting their computers to the internet!).

But do be careful with viruses and malware and ransomware of course.

Thanks for the insight!  Apparently people still have offline pc's so i should be good. I was hoping to be able to update and reactivate the software i have via a separate online PC but if I have to do momentary connections for some of the new stuff I want (and there's a lot of it) then that will probably be ok.  I dread the day when everything has to be online all of the time and I think it's going to happen sooner or later. Back in 2002 when i was in college and i first started doing this kind of thing I did everything on a single PC and it took forever to do anything.  I also lost a good number of projects due to college hackers, viruses and the like. Since then I've never wanted to do an online pc for studio work again. Also my studio pc for its age still works exactly like it does when i first booted it up and I STILL have the occasional issue with dropped recordings or other various errors.  I would imagine having a PC online and bogged down with extra processes would increase these occurrences.