OK, thanks for this Mike.
The reason for not using my C drive was not capacity issue, rather an organisation thing. I have plenty of space.
I have 3 SSD's - 2 x 500GB, 1 x 1TB. Then there's a WD Black 3TB HDD for slow storage. So as I said, it's not space, just organisation, coupled with the fact that it's not amendable is irritating (like an itch you can't scratch).
 
As a point of interest, when you say you have multiple versions of Sonar installed back to X1. Do you have the full version of each installed, or just some selected parts, VST's etc that were not included in later versions i.e V Vocal being replaced by Melodyne? I can back to Sonar Home Studio, and was sad  to see some of the old stuff go.
 
Thanks again, I appreciate it.
Simon

I have the full programs still installed. The only time I delete old versions is when I build a new PC. Then I start with the minimum.

I always install and quarantine new versions, meaning I work with them but don't do mission critical work with them until the major bugs are worked out and is stable.

There are a few plugins also that came with various versions not in Platinum and VVocal is dependent on a full version of Sonar X2 to be installed as its part of the main program. That is, no seperate installer for it.

Apart from loops, samples and other content of that nature, the basic Sonar program only comprises a few hundred megabytes at most. The plugins are common to all version and only a few are exclusively tied to a specific Sonar version.

mudgel
Sonar and any plugins should be on you C:/ drive along with your operating system and other programs.

Samples , loops and other content should be on another drive. If you have a third drive use that for your Sonar projects and other created content. If you only have 2 drives then samples and projects and the main drive as outlined in the first paragraph.

Mike, I am about to start loading plugins on to a new DAW. I have been hesitant and really haven't had time but now I do... anyway. On my old one, my laptop I just had one drive and managed somehow to have things installed in a lot of different folders. I too am interested in keeping this more organized so that my Sonar plugin scanner doesn't list over 10 locations. So... say EZMix, EZDrummer, BFD, TRacks, Nomad Factory stuff, AAS Player, etc... Do I install them all in either the Cakewalk VSTPlugins folders one for 64bit and one for 32bit? I think that some like AD2 have their own installer that I am not sure how much control I have over, like SPLAT. I did install it on my laptop but with one drive I pretty much let it do it's thing. However on this DAW I have a 500G C drive and two 1TB drives. One for projects and one for samples.
Am I getting the idea right? I'm not even sure what questions to ask.
I did note that you said I will need to install X2 to get V-Vocal and I assume I may need to install a version to get R-Mix but I'll look in My Account.
Thanks for any advice... ANYONE... I'm going to get started with the TT stuff first. I'll check back here and
THANKS!
Julien

Firstly, Rmix doesn't work in Platinum, at least not for me. Even the vst scan complains about it. It looks like Roland tied Rmix to the version of Sonar they included it with. A pity as it's a useful tool.
 
As for where to install stuff, it's usually a good idea to put applications on the C drive in the program files folders where Windows expects to find them. The Window's user account permissions system is based on that assumption and breaking it can cause all kinds odd things to happen.
 
DimPro will install its samples on the same drive as DimPro itself, and the only way round this is to install it then move the samples then use mlink to create a junction point between the new location and where DimPro looks for sample content. Stuff like the loop content that comes with Sonar can mostly be moved then the file paths updated in Sonar itself, but you can't do this with applications or dlls without trawling through the registry and doing a lot of manual edits and even then things might not work properly.
 
Registry hacking on that scale is a risky process even if you're very familiar with the Windows registry.
 
GingerTom, it sounds like your registry is a mess. The easiest way to sort it out is probably to reinstall everything from scratch onto an empty formatted drive. A nuisance I knw, but as has been said you can't delete a Windows application simply by deleting all its files. That method went out of the window in the mid 1990s when Windows started using a registry instead of dumping all the files to do with an application in the same folder then relying on the user to edit config.bat and autoexec.bat files to point Windows at things.

If there was an .ini file that users could edit, dir locations might be easier to deal with or reduce dependence on the registry. I'm waiting for Win10 and will see if the reg stuff starts going the way of DXI. Even confusion over MSoft system dir changes might be avoided within a more self-contained Sonar environment, though the real key is easy access to the info be used and logs of what happened. Rather than a nice Linux like package environment, which is what I'd hoped for from C3, with a clean packaged break point from the legacy, instead we have a bit of a muddle. I'll being watching the Win10 impact this summer real closely because I'm actually getting pretty close to a stable Sonar system I can use. I'm hoping that I won't be looking at another round of installation issues this summer/fall. 
 
I always think really hard about having to do a 'CLEAN' re-install of an operating system!! for some mere application unless its for a dedicated device or a really nasty virus. Particularly if I was paying for a monthly subscription. I'm waiting for W10, and if I'm not happy with Sonar I just use other stuff in the meantime. But Sonar is pretty much working for me now (with the usual number of oddities) and setup/config/preset issues.
 
The whole Windows system image BU process changed quietly from W8 to W8.1 which took me a while to sort out, since you'd definitely want to have the option of reverting, if their were issues. 

jbow

mudgel
Sonar and any plugins should be on you C:/ drive along with your operating system and other programs.

Samples , loops and other content should be on another drive. If you have a third drive use that for your Sonar projects and other created content. If you only have 2 drives then samples and projects and the main drive as outlined in the first paragraph.

Mike, I am about to start loading plugins on to a new DAW. I have been hesitant and really haven't had time but now I do... anyway. On my old one, my laptop I just had one drive and managed somehow to have things installed in a lot of different folders. I too am interested in keeping this more organized so that my Sonar plugin scanner doesn't list over 10 locations. So... say EZMix, EZDrummer, BFD, TRacks, Nomad Factory stuff, AAS Player, etc... Do I install them all in either the Cakewalk VSTPlugins folders one for 64bit and one for 32bit? I think that some like AD2 have their own installer that I am not sure how much control I have over, like SPLAT. I did install it on my laptop but with one drive I pretty much let it do it's thing. However on this DAW I have a 500G C drive and two 1TB drives. One for projects and one for samples.
Am I getting the idea right? I'm not even sure what questions to ask.
I did note that you said I will need to install X2 to get V-Vocal and I assume I may need to install a version to get R-Mix but I'll look in My Account.
Thanks for any advice... ANYONE... I'm going to get started with the TT stuff first. I'll check back here and
THANKS!
Julien

1. I allow the Sonar program to be installed in its default location.
2. I put all x64 VST plugins into 1 folder and then within that folder I have a folder for each manufacturer. Usual location for me is C:/Program Files/VSTPlugins
3. I only have a few 32 bit plugins I still like to use so they go into C:/Program Files (x86)/VSTPlugins again organised by manufacturer.
4. It seems the VST3 specification has all plugins default to C:/Program Files/Common/VST3 again I add folders within per manufacturer.
5. The reason for per manufacturer folders is that I seem to be able to remember everything I have for iZotope and Native Instruments eg. than I do for how many compressors or eqs I have.
6. No matter what you do to organise plugins, rest assured that some developer won't follow your rules and after you've installed something will find yourself having to manually move a few plugins.
7. It's always best to keep your programs and plugins together on your OS drive. If you choose not to have that be the C:/ drive I think that only adds an unecessary layer of complexity. Folks talk about ease of back up, so I find it easiest to do a whole OS drive image. That gets me all my programs, plugins their programs and presets all done. It only takes a little while and if a major disaster does occur I can have my system back up in 15 minutes after I get a new drive. Anything else is content like samples, loops etc and content I've generated. Of all the additional stuff, I only backup things that I have created like projects and other self created data.

Hope that's been of some help. When I get some more time I'll setup a full plan of what I put where.
I only get concerned about where the big space consumers go so my C:/ drive doesn't get choked up and is easy to image. I let all the plugins store their presets in their default locations. If things go wrong it's always easy to find where a default location is for something than some exotic location I've hidden something and then forget.

Thanks Mike. I have time today to do some more. I am going to take a look at what I've already done. I am pretty sure I am on the same page as what you said as far as VSTs. I may have to move some samples or uninstall and re-install. I'm not worried about DIM PRO. I've installed EZDrummer but no EZXs or midi packs, so I suppose I can still put them where ever I want them, D drive. I don't remember if I have installed AD2 on my new DAW yet, it is on my laptop.
I'll see what I can get done, thanks!
 
Julien
 
 
PS, yes I do a backup on my laptop but am going to do a full drive image backup on my DAW. Am getting either one large SATA drive or three of the same size and a USB3 docking station.

..and, I'll have to take a look at where CCC put plugins when I installed SPLAT. I let it do it's thing. I hope I don't have to re-do it.
J

Everything has been going smooth except for ToonTrack. Almost everything there has required multiple downloads and unzips to get them to work. Once I figured out the process for installing midi and audio packs it became easier. You have to install (once you stop getting missing file errors) and then move the whole folder to the drive where you want it, then add it to the particular VST "Browser". IK products took literally minutes to download and install a bunch of Amplitude and T-Racks products, it was fast and painless. ToonTrack literally took hours.
The Garritan website would not load on my new computer, the address bar was doing a fast recycle between store and account. I finally managed to login to my account but as soon as I tried to download GPO4, it went nuts again. I finally downloaded it to a DVD on my laptop and installed it from there, then the site stopped acting up. I'm going through other VSTs to see what I want to add and what to leave behind. Ignite Amps VSTs were an easy and fast install. You just unzip and move the .dll, easy. I cannot believe how difficult it was to get ToonTrack products to download, unzip, and install. No support from the TT forum either. I ended up having a day long conversation with myself. Cakewalk is the BEST!
 
Thanks Mike and I apologize for glomming on to this thread.
 
Julien