Anderton
These are all very helpful responses. Still haven't screwed up the courage to move to W10 yet, and W7 doesn't support touch, so...right now it's down to imaging my C drive so if W10 makes things blow up, I can still get work done.
 
I'm sure that after updating to W10 I'll kick myself for not doing it sooner...on the Mac I'm still on Mavericks because it's rock solid, but I'm about to make the leap into Yosemite because I figure with El Capitan happening, they probably fixed all the issues in Yosemite by now.
 
Speaking of which, why did they stop doing cat names? I was so looking forward to the "Hello Kitty" version of OS X.
 
Thanks again everyone for the comments, looking forward to more. 

Just do it, Craig. Make an image backup of your current set up and go for it. You'll be glad you did. There. Now you have someone else to blame if things go south on you.

Craig, FWIW, I had absolutely no issues upgrading from '7 to '10. In fact, it all seems to run a little better. Lower CPU. Less crashes. And I HATE being out of my comfort zone as I have a massive workload on most days.
 
I downloaded 10, but BEFORE installing I cloned my C drive (that way it's only one download). Then installed and it's been great.
 
Your mileage, kilometers or light years may ,of course, vary :O)
 
Great thread though - I am also keen on getting all touchy feely shortly.

Windows 10 on three systems. One system still at W7. That system has the big midi UM880 and two digital touch mixing surfaces. And that system has drivers wich aren't yet available in windows 10.
 
Windows 10 has been relatively problem free. I would not ditch the 700 system. Since it's nice. But you can add a Microsoft touchpad. Wich makes more sense to me than greasy fingers on a screen. Or you get red eyes and no sleep because you have been staring into a lamp for 12 hours.
 

I'm on Windows ten and recently learned how to permanently disable Windows defender on my mobile rig. I believe that defender re enabling in the middle of a gig caused me to lose a recording.

It has to be disabled in group policy.

Windows Defender has never caused me any problems, in Win 8/8.1 or Win 10.  Same way the previous name, Microsoft Security Essentials on Win 7.
 
However, I disable the Ethernet controller when I record/mix, etc. 

My windows 7 desktop runs WAAAAY better with 10 than it ever did with 7! I just upgraded, no clean install. I wish 7 had run this good all that time! The only problem I experienced was that the internal HD audio controller got turned back on some how in the upgrade. After I dis-abled that, it's been running like an Indy car! And the latency is the lowest in Sonar so far.

Just evaluate your studio first.   There is very poor firewire support in 10 and some of my older plugins didn't work.  I imagine that I could suffer a couple of days and solve all the issues but really, I have no complaints at all with Sonar running on my quad core HP under 7 so I rolled back and plan to stay there.   Since this computer is dedicated to music only and Sonar is more or less all I use it for, if it ain't broke, I'm not fixing it;

I am VERY interested in buying a touch screen for SONAR for my dell studio 1747 laptop (now running WIN 10, with benefits).
 
MY CONTEXT AND OBSERVATIONS
 
I, for one, am bad as SH** when I try to setup any control surfaces that does NOT come with presets for SONAR (and I seem to have the habit to be interested mainly by controllers that DOES NOT offers presets for SONAR...) The result being that I am just partly using my MKP mini controller and I am almost never properly unsing my Yamaha 01v96 as a controller for Sonar. (I know there is ACT and messed around with it... i'll get it eventually...)
 
So, my experience with SONAR and control surfaces so far: very frustrating (But it is mainly my fault, as I am not good with work-arounds when presets are not avail...)
 
My opinion is: touch is the future (as a lot of controllers seems not to work properly right out of the box with SONAR. The most common problem being "The controller sends messages to Sonar correctly, but does not seems to receive some messages back from it..."
 
Touch solutions will be more affordable than controllers offering "motorized faders" and the likes. Reaction to the DAW's / PLUGIN's current state is ESSENTIAL to a workflow using a controller. I much prefer mixing only 1 parameter with a mouse knowing at what value I am starting FROM instead of messing with 8 non-motorized fader by first putting the thing BACK at the value showed in the daw BEFORE actually being able to input the values I want to at that moment... Also, current affordable controllers almost NEVER support motorized faders. Heck, even INFINITE ROTARY ENCODERS seems to be a luxury (I cannot believe that new controllers are still offering only "FINITE" rotary encoders... a complete non-sense for me... the new BEHRINGER line seems to be getting the idea...)
 
The MICROSOFT SURFACE as a controller combo using REMOTE DESKTOP seems promising. I would like to try it but I want to be able to use the surface AND work locally on that laptop at the same time (Isn't a remote desktop session logging off the "local" session of the machine it is connected to?)... So, have not yet looked into it.
 
MY (hopefully correct) CONCLUSIONS
 
For touch to really take momentum in Sonar, a lot of work still needs to be done in the UI (the sooner the better). For me, updates to the CONSOLE VIEW's code to allow us to configure displayed parameters to better react to any finger size is essential (same applies to any of the DAW'S windows IMO).
 
Putting work into CODE development to better support natively ANY touch device, instead of new CONTROL SURFACES designs for the next 2-3 years, WILL be profitable. Afterwards, there will still be time for Tascam to develop good (and affordable) controllers flexible enough for the 2020's. Heck, I am thinking of a product that could offer 1-2 motorized faders, infinite rotary controllers and a touch surface. I think AKAI is offering things like this now. More like those needed....
 
TOUCH MONITORS will still have the better advantage for me, as I would be able to use it with other softwares. So any control surface having a too high price-tag will not be considered by the semi-pro-hobbyist audio producer that I am.
 
... BUT... I will only be buying a touch monitor IF the bakers are rolling out some new features in that area... full circle, chicken / egg situation...
 
Hope this helps a little.

i'm staying with mouse... i would need a LARGE screen to use touch and then your face would be right in it and the eyes would dry up... but then I'm no spring chicken.