Not enough characters in the thread titles for the full question.
 
My system is Win7 Pro which I am happy with but wouldn't mind checking out 10.
 
Sonar (and Windows obviously) are on my C drive. My project folders are on my E drive (at least all my recent ones are after switching my folder locations and I can easily migrate any others not yet there).
 
So if I install Win10 on a partition on my C drive (and leave the current Win7/Sonar installation on it as well) am I going to be able to open/save/write to/etc my E drive from either partition without issue? Or is that a huge no no?
 
I figure it's just a storage drive but I'm not sure if by manipulating Sonar files or the accessing the E drive in this manner (sometimes on 10, sometimes on 7) whether all the bits and bytes will get crudded up.
 
Strange question perhaps but inquiring minds and all that rot.
 
No rush. Cheers.

You'll need to install Sonar and all plugins under Win 10 as well as 7 if you want it to be usable under both in a dual-boot setup. I doubt there's any reason why a project saved in Win10 won't open fine if opened in Win 7 or vice-versa, but the Sonar recent files dialogue will differ depending on which Windows installation you're in at the time. Things like vst presets will probably be using different folders as well, so won't be accessible from both installations unless you sort out the paths, which may involve some fiddling with Windows junction points....

I'm still on Win8.1, partly because Windows versions seem to need to get to SP1 stage to be really solid and partly because the PC has been behaving a bit oddly for the last few weeks with intermittent freezes and I need to get to the bottom of that, but I've run dual-boot setups in the past and the above has always been my experience.

Is your E drive an independent drive? If so yes you can. You can set up Win 10 to boot to it or Win 7. Duel boot. 

John
....Duel boot. 

That could cause Windows 7 + 10 to fight each other to the death! 
 
 
 

Hey Beep,
I do the same thing. You will have no problem accessing your other drive from either partition of Windows.
In my case I have my projects/samples on the D: drive with my C being an SSD.
Of course you will have to install Sonar for both Windows as has been mentioned and that is Windows.

Or you could just bite the bullet and embrace 10, burning your bridges with 7 in the process....
 
I went for it on a whim and am super happy. Everything works perfectly and it's the best OS Microsoft have made so far. But if you're worried, why not just spend a bit of time Googling all of your tools and plugins to see if anyone's had any problem with Windows 10? 

tlw
You'll need to install Sonar and all plugins under Win 10 as well as 7 if you want it to be usable under both in a dual-boot setup. I doubt there's any reason why a project saved in Win10 won't open fine if opened in Win 7 or vice-versa, but the Sonar recent files dialogue will differ depending on which Windows installation you're in at the time. Things like vst presets will probably be using different folders as well, so won't be accessible from both installations unless you sort out the paths, which may involve some fiddling with Windows junction points....

I'm still on Win8.1, partly because Windows versions seem to need to get to SP1 stage to be really solid and partly because the PC has been behaving a bit oddly for the last few weeks with intermittent freezes and I need to get to the bottom of that, but I've run dual-boot setups in the past and the above has always been my experience.

hmm... something I hadn't considered (and thus the thread) and raises some interesting points/problems.
 
I mostly use default paths for everything (at least for Cake stuff). I mostly only use Cake stuff but some third party tools.
 
I know that's not your point (actual user presets... not the VSTs themselves) but this seems very important. All the VSTs (and pretty much everything... which I'm drawing a blank on) would need to be using the same paths or at least somewhere the projects can find them on the different partitions.
 
All of a sudden the importance of there being a general VST folder that seems to get used by all programs (like other DAWs and the VSTs themselves) is becoming clearer. Interesting.
 
As far as presets... yeah, I guess if a user preset is saved in one partition it won't be there in another. I gotta wonder how that affects projects though. Like once a preset is loaded into a project should the project file then have all the data it needs to load the preset (because it is already in the track and the settings set to the preset values) even though the actual preset isn't available outside the project?
 
So I would not be able to call up a preset from scratch (on the new partition) but if it already exists in the project the project will load it's settings anyway (and I could even then save it as preset and thus have it on the new partition).
 
As far as preset migration... I know some plugs make this easy (like the preset export options on things like GR5 and TH2) but a lot of the Sonar stuff... yeah, not sure where that all lives or if there is a saveable/moveable folder (doubt it).
 
Kind of having a hard time envisioning how to set up those folder "link" setups (I'm assuming you are referring to the mklink command) to access them since the presets would be on the other partition and not accessible.
 
Unless the Windows partitions can talk to each other and the first partition (where the presets reside) can act as a slave/storage that files can be accessed from (while ignoring the OS installation).
 
I know Linux setups can sneak into Windows partitions to yank files (but not vice versa) but now I'm wondering if Windows to Windows parts can behave in this manner.
 
Ooof... okay, I guess I just sent myself into a brain bender (and am mostly "talking" out loud) but that's definitely some stuff to think on.
 
Thanks, dude. This is why I like chatting with you.
 
Cheers.

In regards to why I don't want to abandon 7... I'm kind of a packrat in that regard (I don't like dumping working installations) and actually have some plans regarding making some comparisons of the two.
 
I also love Win7. I have a feeling I'm going to despise 10 for a year or so until I figure it out as well as I have 7 (and XP before it).
 
I also have some driver/older program type concerns. I'm just not entirely convinced all my crap is gonna work (or at least not right away) so in those cases I'd just switch to the 7 part.
 
 
 

I am not a fan of adopting new OS's either beepster and was still on Win 7. I spent the last two days doing clean installs of Win 7, Win 10 and Sonar to compare their perfomance on two of my systems, pretty much identically specd. Much to my surprise, all of the hype around win 10 is true - it rocks! One thing I did notice was that when I first loaded them, the clean install of win 7 actually seemed faster. It took Win 10 a while to finish updating drivers etc (which it found mostly by itself). Once it had settled in it was way ahead. Looking at the perfornance monitor an a particularly I intensive project, I would say around a 15-20% improvement. I had previously had to raise the audio buffers to 1024 at mix down. On win 10, I was easily able to drop them back to 512.  All anecdotal of course - others may find mileage varies. I had a couple of minor quirks but they were easily sorted. It was way harder going from Win7 32bit to Win 7 64 bit in my opinion.
It is also worth upgrading to pro if you don't have it already. You have mch more control over updates, privacy,  account settings etc. 
As far as the learning curve goes, it is MUCH more like win 7 than windows 8 was. You will hit the ground running. I didn't even turn on the Win 7 machine today. Happy camper:)

Most of the things you are trying to do can be done ...
Remember that Windows will treat whichever partition is not the
primary as storage, so be tidy when moving things, messing with links,
setting up universal plugin folders (I do that), etc.
You will probably have set up junction points once for each active partition
separately, but not sure on this.
 
One would assume that playing a Sonar 2015 file would work the same
on both partitions, but I would not be surprised if that isn't the case, as
I'm not privy to, or understanding of the changes under the hood of Windows
since version seven.
 
Peace,
Mel
 
:Edit to mention that I will shortly update my sig. to reflect the changes on my system
(man, a while since I've been on the net!)