My advice?
 
Stick with what you've got until you're ready to embrace a full 64 bit environment
 
I started off with Sonar 6 and made some great songs with it.

I don't think any SONAR version is/was a dog. That sounds disturbingly negative to me. I think we will do well to remember it's SONAR that we are choosing to use and which enables us to make music and do other things. I think we should be grateful/considerate enough to not make silly comments about the software, especially when seeking and obtaining help to use it.
 
So, since you choose to repeat that silly phraseology that someone else posted. I'll leave it to them to help you from here, but goodluck getting up and running.

If the main reason for you to go to SONAR 8 is that it's said to be light on the PC, I doubt you'll benefit anything.
Every version new version of SONAR includes something the previous ones didn't, and the lightness is relative.
When S8 came out computers were more powerfull than two years earlier and so on. My guess is that 8 in fact requires more resources than 6, anyway. But as mentioned, I'm only guessing.
 
I'd say that if you could move to 8.5.3 you'd really get improvements. As far as I can recall there were quite a bit
of debate on version 8, as if it was a bit unstable/buggy on some areas. 
 
I'm in the situation that no option for gear/SONAR upgrade is in sight for the next several years. I just have to hope my XP/SONAR 8.5.3 keeps ticking as well as it has for  so many years already. It may well be that Bristol_Joneseys advice is the best - stick to what you've got untill you can get a proper gear/software upgrade.
 
And to clarify once more: As SONAR lisences are not transferrable ( and support for those old versions doesn't exist) you're totally on your own, on the illegal side, actually (but as mentioned earlier, who cares as so old versions are in question) You can't register the software, so you'll get no support, no updates nor upgrades.
 
I hope you'll find a satisfying way to continue with your music making!
 
 

Hi Roxy.  Concerning the US 428, or as I named mine "Babe, the Blue Box", it has drivers to run thru Vista that are still available from TASCAM on the legacy product page.


However, the main issue I had with mine is that it is USB 1.1 only, not the fast USB 2.  I am sure that is why it was dropped from the lineup along with the fact that it was made by Frontier, who is now defunct. 

Sorry about repeating the "Dog" comment. It wasn't meant to be a slam on Sonar , I don't know enough about it to have an opinion one way or the other.I was merely referring to the fact that someone else on this forum described it as such. But thank you guys again for helping. I think I'll follow the advice and stick to what I have for now.
My new interface just arrived and I'll be able to check it out tonight.Then I'll know what software it actually comes with. But even it the Studio One doesn't end up being anything I can use on XP, just the fact that the interface has onboard effects will probably improve my setup.

Sounds good, Roxy.
 
If you decide to go with SONAR 8 or 8.5 and need some help somewhere, come back and we'll try to see what we can do?

Be aware that Sonar does not overwrite previous versions. Provided you have enough space on your drive, you can have both. I had S3 PE, S5 PE and S6 PE on my previous machine, which ran W2k. S5 and S6 were not supported on W2k, but they worked fairly well. I just had to find my own workarounds whenever it burped at me. I carried S6 over to my new W7 machine, same situation regarding lack of support....but it works.

Like what river said... I had 8.5, x1, x3, and platinum all installed. however on my computer i only have Platinum but i do still got 8.5 on my laptop.

Mind you if you can't register a particular version you won't be able to get the various updates so you'll be stuck with which ever version you have.

Like Sonar 8 started of as 8 but had numerous updates right upto 8.3.1

Sonar 6 also had numerous updates.

The release versions usually had numerous bugs that weren't squashed until the very last revision.

So, I currently have Sonar 6.2 on my computer licensed to me. If I understand it correctly, If I installed a previously registered version of Sonar 8 on my computer, it would not install over Sonar 6.
but it would be an independent installation that would not allow me to install the minor bug fixes,right?
How buggy is Sonar 8 ? Should I stay away from it or are there any features that it has that might make it a better choice than the "bug free" version of 6.2?
I have an external midi module that has good sounds, so I probably would not use soft synths.
I like latin jazz and the afro cuban rhythms sound really bad if I use midi drums, so I want to use drums and percussion loops.
Are there any drum loop related new features on Sonar 8,  that 6 does not have? That could be very important for me.
Thanks again :)