At first I thought it was like DAW PMS, a monthly annoying ritual doing updates, but really its not that painful, and no longer start barking at the wife once a month. Perhaps I've reached musical menopause and now look forward to what they come up with each month, and of more value may be the under the hood operational improvements, which may not be as obvious as added features, all in all I think its a good thing.
 
Cheers   

1) Help File Problem: I just completed the support request to figure out what's going on with the help file after useful  steps from the forum which didn't resolve the problem. I come to the forums first when I have questions because I appreciate the help and I'm usually missing something somebody else probably knows. There is a separate thread on the help problem and I don't troll the forums. 
http://forum.cakewalk.com...lp-error-m3308074.aspx
 
2) SPro Comments:  The thread title is pretty explicit, and I'm voting YES, and I'm not even Plat, just Pro. This is my experience. I haven't played with Sonar much over this summer. This is my experience now and I've been using CW stuff since the early 90's.
 
3) Sys/HW comments: IMHO, CW is approaching the point where they are abandoning the 'personal' in PC and deliberately focusing on a more 'dedicated' HW platform. As I recall, this was done before, several times in fact, some with custom midi controllers.  HW controllers are a tough biz, but that seems to me to be where CW is headed. For me, Sonar is just another decoration on my Xmas tree of tools. I just want control of my C: drv back. If I have to choose between HW and SW, the decorations lose every time. I'm getting ready to vote with feet and thought CW might be interested and wanted to share my thoughts with the forum. 
 
4) XLN: I figured it out but wasn't expecting (or had scheduled) activity to shift to W10. It's working now. It is confusing to see the C3 Grn light for it though when it was out of date. If CW is going to manage the updates via C3 great. But, if I'm still going to have to manage them, please just show the link to XLN and dump the status light.
 
Hopefully, it will provide an opinion (and experience) to the OP's question and those who are interested.
 
 
 

3) Sys/HW comments: IMHO, CW is approaching the point where they are abandoning the 'personal' in PC and deliberately focusing on a more 'dedicated' HW platform. As I recall, this was done before, several times in fact, some with custom midi controllers.  HW controllers are a tough biz, but that seems to me to be where CW is headed. For me, Sonar is just another decoration on my Xmas tree of tools. I just want control of my C: drv back. If I have to choose between HW and SW, the decorations lose every time. I'm getting ready to vote with feet and thought CW might be interested and wanted to share my thoughts with the forum. 

I am handy with hardware but I am finding it difficult to follow you. You really need to contact CW support. 

To answer the OP.  Do the Sonar Platinum users feel overwhelmed with all of the updates?
 
Nope.

My DAW is also my personal desktop and I have few issues with Sonar Platinum, other than my lack of ability as a producer/engineer. Kinda blows a hole in the whole "dedicated" idea....... I spend about half my time in Sonar, etc, and the other half I use it as a desktop. I attribute my success to the hardware, and I was a computer tech til mid 2011.

Well, thanks for all the comments. 
 
1) Beepster: I get a 'fail to launch' error, there are no hidden windows, in this case. I did miss the install window thrown up by the XLN installer which took some finding (3 monitors, most cluttered). Excellent reminder.
 
2) New posts: I just changed ISP's and had to update profile info for CW. Earlier posts were with a different name. NBD
 
I apologize for any rants or confusion. I'm just not having as much fun as I used to with Sonar. This is at least my second support request this year. And I don't like surprises anymore.
 
 

5MilesHigh
Well, thanks for all the comments. 
 
1) Beepster: I get a 'fail to launch' error, there are no hidden windows, in this case. I did miss the install window thrown up by the XLN installer which took some finding (3 monitors, most cluttered). Excellent reminder.
 
2) New posts: I just changed ISP's and had to update profile info for CW. Earlier posts were with a different name. NBD
 
I apologize for any rants or confusion. I'm just not having as much fun as I used to with Sonar. This is at least my second support request this year. And I don't like surprises anymore.
 
 

"Fail to Launch" definitely sounds like perhaps the help files got tucked away somewhere Sonar does not know to look. I think (and I'm sorry... I'm not sure how to actually DO this but others might) is you need to figure out the location Sonar looks for the help files by default then somehow find, copy and place the help files there. I recently went through the process of locating the help files for SPlat, copying them to a flash drive and moving them onto my laptop (where I keep all my manuals for quick access while I screw with my DAW). It's not in an easily accessible location (and sorry... I'd have to dig the thread up again to tell you how to find them and have NO idea where you'd place them so Sonar points/retreives them with an F1 command) but that might work or at least you could just yank it and put it somewhere easily accessible (like a Desktop folder) for when you need it.
 
A lot of this really does seem to be related to a more complex system drive setup. I keep a pretty simple setup (I recently got the balls enough to actually changing my default projects folder(s) to my E drive) so again I probably can't be much help...
 
BUT there were quite a few complaints about how the CCC program was forcing elements to install in places the users did not necessarily want them to go. I did not follow all that very closely because it did not pertain to me (I use the custom offline install and do not have CCC installed on my DAW) but IIRC the end result was the Bakers updated the CCC installer program to allow more flexibility a couple months ago so that users with more complex setups could send things where they wanted them to be. The reviews of this improvement seemed quite positive so maybe look into that.
 
What I'm thinking (well guessing really) is that because you had been using CCC from the outset that the old (inflexible) version setup some undesirable installation paths and now with every update, even with the updated CCC, things are still going to those locations.
 
If that is the case I'd update your support ticket to ask exactly what you need to do to start from scratch, set the PROPER desired locations and go from there.
 
This, I imagine, would probably be done the most efficiently/effectively with a full uninstall/reinstall of everything (after backing up your projects of course) then starting from scratch with the NEW CCC program set to the desired paths (or using the offline system and the Advanced install option).
 
Just some ideas and I would highly recommend bringing this all up with tech support with a full description of your system and how you want it all to work. They should be able to help you customize/map it all in a way that is desirable.
 
Good luck.
 
Cheers.

charlyg: I'd like to suggest another OT new topic to discuss tips on how to best manage PC DAW's. You seem like somebody who could share with the forum.
 
I'd really like some tips on managing a desktop DAW. Our circumstances may be a bit different, as I run 3 or 4 OS/configs (a couple each month now) and with UEFI each require a boot disk (ie: C: which really disrupts MS's drv letter assignments if they aren't consecutive). Do you run a more dedicated system?
 
I also installed X1 32&64b and SPro 32&64b side by side simultaneously to sort things out a bit before blindly jumping from the 32b VST's that I knew into the mess of 64's.
 
I like your comments and generally agree. When Sonar works, its really, really nice. And, of course like any Ferrari, when it just kinda works, how fast does one want to go before testing the brakes (ie. time invested in that tool)? 
 
Either start the topic, reply yes, or I'll forget it. Some may find it helpful though.
I'd title it 'HPC Personal DAWs', but you'll likely do better.
 
Thanks for comments
 
 

5MilesHigh
It is confusing to see the C3 Grn light for it though when it was out of date. If CW is going to manage the updates via C3 great. But, if I'm still going to have to manage them, please just show the link to XLN and dump the status light. 

Agree here. In CCC I'd like to see links to third party control panels and installation URL's in a separate form. The traffic light thing makes no sense. If CCC isn't managing the software it should not 'pretend' to do so...

Not overwhelmed, just have more tools to learn with and experiment using.
When is more toys a bad thing?????