I suggest the man who has a picture of a troll for his avatar turn his monitor brightness up if he can't see properly.

That was real helpfull!  
And it's not a troll it's a Yard Gnome. BIG difference. 

Cactus Music
 I really hated the new PVR. Why of all things that were wrong with Sonar did they choose to change something that didn't need changing. I've never read of anyone complaining about the way the PVR looked! 
 

Yea. The Post 2017.01 PRV changes were enough to make me never go past 2017.01.
The work flow slow down was just too much for me.

The great thing about BLCW is that is can be installed along side of SPLAT with no problems so
I will give the slower *mouse needy* less efficient and harder to see PRV an other chance, but most likely just to point out the specific ways it doesn't measure up to the 2017.01 version when it comes to speed of manipulation.

Sure, there are some good things about it, I particularly liked the new controller pane design,
but the loss of hot keys killed it for me with post 2017.01 SPLAT.

I'm glad it's back and that it can be installed along side of SPLAT.
Without that bonus I'd be staying with 2017.01 til the cows come home.

Cactus Music
Thanks for chiming in Noel..  OK, you guys talked me back on board... I have  re installed it and will give it a Go. 
Here's what I mean about the PRV.   I'll just have to squint :)  
 

The other thing that bugs me is the controller pane in the new PVR the graphs are white or very pale. Old version they followed the color of the track. I really don't see the appeal of making it harder to see? I guess I'll have to learn about the theme editor. 
 

 
I tried Mercury and it gives me a correct PRV but makes the rest of Sonar way to colorful. 
 

 
 

If you want tungsten with the white PRV, I believe you can make a renamed cooy of Splat's tungsten and place it in the new Cake's theme directory. I think you also need to change the filename suffix. Someone (might have been scook),posted this somewhere...

Thanks for the confirmation bitflipper

doesn't home studio also share the same "shared folders" directories as sonar? that's the thing (and shared registry keys) that stops different sonar version installs being genuinely seperated

That was my concern

only bandlab can answer definitively, and it is a question that's kept coming up over the years, but cakewalk never answered/clarified it

Cactus Music
I tried Mercury and it gives me a correct PRV but makes the rest of Sonar way to colorful. 

If you're referring to the colorful track strip headers, you can disable that in Preferences -> Colors, by unchecking "Show strip colors". Hope that helps.

AIR instruments are working fine in my case.