So here I am wondering why ever since I upgraded, that I can no longer make some changes in various VST softsynths without them reverting back.

For instance, in Arturia Spark, I had a drum pad mapped to key #36.  By default, that pad was mapped to #60.  I changed it to #36, was happy with the sound, saved the project... then re-opened it and the pad was mapped to #60 again!
 
I kept doing this trying to figure out what was wrong.   Eventually, I decided to check, and to my surprise Sonar 2015 does not run "As Administrator"!  Sonar X3 clean install sets the Sonar application by default to run as Administrator, which is why I never had this issue before!

Now I am running Sonar as administrator as my VST's are now responding fine - but I am surprised they didn't program Sonar to run as Administrator.

I also wonder if anyone else is experiencing like issues because of this!
 
 

The reason why you have issues is that some of your plugins save to the wrong area of the registry or in a file location it does not have permissions for, that's not Sonar's fault. In reality it's not a good idea to run any application as administrator.
 
I never run Sonar administrator (apart from registering Dim Pro/Rapture) as it can cause other problems. Instead I try and alter registry or file permission for dodgy plugins as and when they require it. Pentagon is a classic example.
 
Still if it's easier for you to run as administrator fine, but please understand why it isn't the default.
 

alewgro
Sonar X3 clean install sets the Sonar application by default to run as Administrator

 
I'm pretty certain that does not happen.

eh...I do not believe x3 first run did that, as I was told by some here to reinstall because it was not done as admin..(confused me, as I am the administrator user on this system, I thought all things I installed on this admin account were being installed as admin automatically...But was mistaken by that assumption..and corrected...by BOB and ALEX.....and attributes could be set to run always as admin in preferences once installed as admin,  via right click of the exe, and in the Sonar folder By Bob, as he said he did do to his installs...but that is not 2015 x3 sonar. ..more like first release 2013 last quarter...and update to , from x2, which also had to be run as Admin to install....and as was that predecessor x1...I think the new Premium platinum version with the cc setup auto installer now does this for us....So less complaints occur with the installs for the bakers to sort....so not sure about the  comment :   sets to run as admin for x3.

It seems some plugins have things that they save/access that need the explicit Run As Administrator option to do.  Sonar Platinum itself does not need to be run with the Run As Administrator option, and does not install with that option set.  None of the Sonar installations I ever recall doing installed themselves with the Run As Administrator option set.  I always did that change to the launch icon manually.
 
It so happens that I also have changed Sonar Platinum's launch icon to use the explicit Run As Administrator option anyway, just to avoid any problems from any loaded plugins, as described above.  So, I never see any of those permissions issues.
 
Bob Bone
 

Everyone is correct, X3 doesn't install that way by default.  I think I found my problem.  When I rebuilt my machine I used a Microsoft account to login to Windows 8, not a local one, and it made me a "Standard User", so everything I am doing is running as such.   Problem is, it won't even let me change it, something weird with Windows 8, but either way - I now run Sonar as Administrator and my VSTs now work.  

I am happy ;)
 
Thank you!

Cool that you have it squared away.  Please note that having an account that is of type Administrator IS different than launching a program with the explicit option Run As Administrator - just to be clear.  You get extra execution privileges with Run As Administrator.
 
Bob Bone
 

alewgro
When I rebuilt my machine I used a Microsoft account to login to Windows 8, not a local one, and it made me a "Standard User", so everything I am doing is running as such.   Problem is, it won't even let me change it, something weird with Windows 8 

When I updated to Windows 8, I inadvertently set it up to login to my Microsoft account, and I couldn't find a way to change it. But there is a way to change it to a local logon. That was a while ago and I don't remember what was involved, but if you still want to change to a local login, I found the solution in a web search. Changing the login wasn't hard at all, just not obvious.

alewgro
Everyone is correct, X3 doesn't install that way by default.  I think I found my problem.  When I rebuilt my machine I used a Microsoft account to login to Windows 8, not a local one, and it made me a "Standard User", so everything I am doing is running as such.   Problem is, it won't even let me change it, something weird with Windows 8, but either way - I now run Sonar as Administrator and my VSTs now work.  

I am happy ;)
 
Thank you!

For a start you should upgrade Windows to 8.1 update 1. As already said you can change from a Microsoft to a Local user. It is also possible to just create a new login. I'll check my setup but I know I just googled the problem and got a Knowledge Base article from Microsoft that explained how to change my login back to local but after all that I ended up using my MS login as it helps with other things I do like back up to Onedrive.