There are a variety of directory junction examples on the forum. Use Google to search for
site:forum.cakewalk.com mklink
to get a list of posts.

If you want to speed up sample load times... and greatly expand your disk-streaming polyphony, put those sample libraries on SSD. 
 
If you have the budget, M.2 Ultra SSD is about 6 times the speed of SATA SSD.
Used strategically (for your most heavily used libraries), this can make a tremendous difference.
 
 

Thanks for all the great suggestions. Now for the last request what antivirus do most of us use if any for our DAW?

Now that is a loaded question!  The answer ranges from none, to everything else. 
 
One thing depends on whether you are dedicating your PC to DAW only, or using it as a multi-use PC.  If it a dedicated studio DAW, maybe the best plan is to disconnect it from the network and use offline updates only.  You only need an on-demand scanner if that is the case.  No real-time AV protection required, which frees up a bit of RAM and some CPU cycles.
 
But if you are going to be connecting to the internet, you need some protection.
 
A lot of folks take their chances with Windows Defender, which has improved with Windows 10.  It doesn't always score the highest detection rates in tests, but it is free and included with Windows.  Since it is embedded in Windows some folks feel that it has the lowest system impact.
 
Many AV file scanners let you set some exclusions, so you can prevent your audio drives from being scanned, for example.  Or you can disable real-time scanning while you are working with audio.
 
IMHO, if you want the best paid protection, Bitdefender. Kaspersky, and Avira are consistently among the best in 3rd party tests year after year.
 
The best free products are probably Avast, Bitdefender, and Avira.  For free plug and play with the broadest coverage, if you don't plan to install more than one product, my vote would go to Avast Free.  In addition to the file shield and web shield, it now has a behavior shield.  Just be sure to select the custom install, and uncheck the extras you don't really need.  https://www.avast.com/en-us/free-antivirus-download
 
Good luck!  You are likely to get some interesting opinions on this subject! 

An often overlooked item in the system protection plan is a backup plan.  If you already have one, great!
 
If not, something as simple as Macrium Reflect Free is an excellent option.  Use a cheap external USB drive and you can make a full image of your selected PC drives, on a schedule, as often as you feel is necessary.   https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
 
The Macrium bootable rescue media can restore your system image in minutes, in the event that your PC ever becomes un-bootable (or gets overrun with malware).  The Macrium wizard builds a bootable CD/DVD or thumb drive for you based on Windows PE, so you can boot your system and access your backup images for recovery. 
 
Highly recommended!  I take a system image with it every day.
 

I just use Windows Defender, but I don't generally browse the internet on this computer. But I DO leave it online to d/l updates and check Cakewalk forums with it and transfer files to/from my home computer (which I DO use for general browsing).

delete me. duplicate post