Hello all,
I’m hoping the experts here can help me…
I was a HUGE Cakewalk user in the mid 1990’s.  I bought Cakewalk in 1994 (to be honest, I can’t remember if I had Express or Home Studio) and then used it prolifically for the next 10 years up until around 2004.   I used it as a midi sequencer (no DAW for me) and would dovetail with live audio (e.g. guitar and vocals) that I’d record on my Tascam 4-Track, etc.
Family and kids came along in 2004, and I pretty much stopped everything.   At the time I stopped all things musical in 2004, I was running Cakewalk on either a Windows 95 or maybe even a Windows XP machine.   Of course, the computer that I used to use got thrown out years ago, and I've long since lost the original floppy disks and documentation, etc.   However, I DID keep all my .WRK files on a CD that I burned.
 
I’m now looking to get back into music and would love to start playing all my sequenced stuff, etc, but I obviously don’t have Cakewalk on a working computer anymore.  I came here to see what options I had, and I now see that Sonar is effectively discontinued.   Of course, I could buy some new software like Cubase or something, but how can I open the .WRK files?  Or – perhaps more critically – how can I convert the .WRK files into regular midifiles that new sequencing software would be able to utilise?
Can anyone here help or point me in the right direction?
Thanks,
AD

It was still possible to get the latest Sonar Home Studio for free a couple of days ago, it still seems to be working.
 
Read this thread, post #16 has everything you need to get SHS put into your Cakewalk Account for free.
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Any-Possibility-of-Getting-the-Newest-Version-m3717194.aspx
 
I would download the installer and run it manually so that you can choose to install the 32 bit version, it seems that the 64 bit version may have some issues opening older work files, after installation you'll then need to do an offline activation, it's a little confusing but not hard at all.
 
Good luck!

Here is another thread about the same subject for your reading.
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Free-copy-of-Home-Studio-until-feb-1st-m3718860.aspx
 

Thanks @Strryder - that did the trick!!  :-)   All files now successfully saved as regular midi files!
You're a legend!
Cheers,
AD