I am familiar with the Plug-in manager and can and do use it. However, I'm moving Sonar onto my new W8.1 machine and am seeing some odd stuff. None of my Sonar's (X1_32/64 or SonarPro_32/64) appear to be using the plug-in dir I setup in the file preferences. I made some plg's and put them in that dir, but they don't show up in the browser's plug-layout listing, as I would expect. Launching the plug-in mgr from the browser does start it (once I set Sonar to run in Admin mode after some trial and error) and it gets the default list being used by the browser. But if I modify it and save it, the plg file goes in with other plg in the dir I setup but doesn't get transferred back to the browser or show up in the plug list so I could select it. 
All the doc's suggest that the browser uses a 'Default - All Plug-ins' file. However, I can't find it anywhere. Even in the list of usual suspects (C:Program Data, User/App Data...,) much less in my file preference for plug-in layouts. I have no idea where the browser is pointed but it isn't at my file preference location and no sign of that 'default' file exists on any of my HDDs. 
 
I've also noticed that menus that offer to use a plug-in list (say for selecting FXs) also don't use the dir set in preferences and the plug-in layouts I've setup in there. Is there something I'm not setting up correctly or is this some sort of bug?
I hope there isn't some manual registry tweak, but I could live with that, though would have to question why?
 
Any suggestions appreciated.
 

Full Sonar version/s you have having issue with?
 
Try...
 
1) Edit -> Preferences -> VST Settings - Press the reset button.
2) Edit -> Preferences -> VST Settings - Press the rescan button.
 
Cheers..
 
 

Thanks for prompt reply and suggestion. This kind of helped. So, to try to keep things simple, I started up the SPro32 where I only have to deal with one VST dir in E:\Programs Files (x86)\VstPlugins (where I have about 150 vst's). I spent a couple hours this morning going through that dir and getting rid of the problematic stuff and making sure nothing was throwing errors on load/verify/scan using another tool, so it should be clean if busy. I also disabled both the Rescan options which I'd been using to skip around stuff prior to the cleaning. I also went through and checked my folder preferences again, and found some errors there which I corrected.
 
Reset, Scan and I suddenly see some options in my plugin list. But it's still a bit weird. The VST scan completed and found 150 VST's with no errors. The Plug-in manager (32b) defaulted to my 'user'/AppData/Roaming/Cakewalk/SonarPro dir rather than the Preferences selection, but it may not get pointed to the active path though it does have the 'Default' loaded. Now I had reset all my pref paths morning to my dirs on my E:\ProgramData, but the file load dialog showed it to be reset to the old C:user path. Odd. Then the VST scanner hung when re-scanning from the plug-in menu after an earlier successful scan. Oddly, I was seeing menu titles similar to but not my file names in the menu. Both the VST scanner and the Plug-in manager seem a little fussy about the preferences selection. I'm also starting to think that I might need a separate plug dir for the 32 and 64b SPros. I've been using a common dir for my SX1's as well but they are also troubled. Space is cheap on the HDD so I'll try that.
 
The Menu shows a 'Default - All Plug-ins' selection but it isn't a file in either dir. (My preference dir is 'E:Program Data\Cakewalk\SonarPro\Plug-in Menus Layouts' selected by mouse from the dir locater. The 'Default - All Plug-ins' has all of my VSTis, MidiFX and aFX (as near as I can tell with a quick look), but isn't really formatted very conveniently. The files that did show up were ones I had setup manually a couple days ago in preparation for this install since I thought I knew what I was doing. I had tried the reset/scan sequence, but possibly some bad dll's were faulting the scanner, though it seems it should have reported something. However, I am still seeing some VST scanner hangs on rescans and SPro even sent a Fault Report for one. It tried to send a Fault Report earlier today, but it hung the system (frozen mouse, not Task Manager, etc). I'm seeing lots of one off stuff, but its early days. Even so, this is not plug and play territory and this is the most problematic install I've had all this month.
 
PS: I just re-started the SPro32 to check my Pref path and sure enough, the Plug path got reset to the C:user. I did not do this. Maybe the VST scanner is altering my path prefs?
 
 
I've been struggling getting my audio interfaces working through ASIO as well. Oddly, it's the Roland/Eiderol UA-4FX driver that hangs the system but that's a different problem for another thread and another day. It doesn't happen with my other apps. Roland and CW are right and left hands so this was unexpected. The browser had been a sideline, but since I was posting, I thought I'd overlooked the obvious once again wrt the browser.
 
So, no browser joy, but apparently some progress. It still seems unhappy with a custom pref selection so I may try just re-setting to the user/AppData path again. It points at C: but I re-located all my user data stuff to another partition on the HDD since it also gets used as a junk well and its data isn't very stable. 
 
Tomorrow, I'll try this with the 64b versions after creating seperate 32/64b dirs for my pref dirs, but I don't expect many differences. 
 
.

m.letcher@q.com
.... I'm also starting to think that I might need a separate plug dir for the 32 and 64b SPros....

It's not only a good idea, but generally recommended.
 
Then reset/rescan, and see if that's fixed your problems. 
 

Yup, I also suggest moving the VST folders out of Program Files directory, makes life a lot easier. And get rid of the plugins you never use.

To the OP.

Just make sure that if you do move plugins that it is only VST/i's. (as per CakeAlexs recommendation)
DX plugins are a whole different kettle of fish and won't work after being moved manually. They require an actuall installation and registration process. Just in case you weren't aware.

Thanks for all the suggestions. A bunch of those VSTs are FX's from CW anyway, that are hanging around for possible compat reasons. Some are from Sony/Acid that I probably should dump, but I'll keep the PG stuff as I just upgraded BiaB. Nothing like loading a song and getting missing effects msgs, and then trying to locate and re-install some FX that I rarely use. I actually encountered this loading the audio demo and not correctly matching the Boost11 FX. I had to delete and re-insert it to get even the demo to not throw an error on loading it. At least SPro did show the GUID it expected and hint at it being a missing FX, though the error msg showed the same GUID for the missing and recommended plug-in, so I'm still confused about what it was unhappy with. I don't think I've ever DLed an FX package and even actively avoid the IK MultiMedia stuff (AmpliTube, etc) since it leaves leftovers all over my system and I don't want their 'trial' stuff anyway.
 
HDD space is cheap, time is expensive, so I leave them there. I've pruned my VSTis down to like the 50 or so I actually use every 6 months or so. Half I know and love, the others I'm learning and have potential. Sadly, there are only about a half dozen MidiFX. I don't use aFX much, so leave them be if they aren't a problem as I won't ever get around to comparing them, but don't want anything to break due to something I 'cleaned' up.
 
After some reflection, I suspect that there may be some permission issues, but maybe not. So, I'll check those dir's of interest as well as update the VST scanner and Plug Managers to Admin status. That might account for the pref getting reset which I've seen CW do when it finds an apparently invalid dir pointer.
 
I'm aware of DXI issues and registry hell, but thanks for the reminder. I have most of my DXIs converted to VST shells anyway since some other DAWs don't like DXIs anymore. No VSTs get converted to DXIs. I sure wish CW would use .ini files rather then the rats nest that is the MS Registry. 
 
To my understanding, the location of the VST folder isn't too important unless there are file permission issues which is a different problem anyway. Win8.1 is different, and apparently W10 will be even more different. I come from a Unix/Linux so I'm appalled that Win8.1 has only a global hide file setting, and can't be controlled on a file/dir level. But that's OT and I'll not discuss inheritance. A lot of my other programs already use the existing VST folder location, so I'm not going to just change where it is and break a half-dozen other programs. They don't have any problems with its current location, and I don't see anything suggesting SPro does either. Most of my 'drv's' are actually partions of a 2GB HDD anyway, so shifting anything to a 'different' drv doesn't mean much unless I go to one of the other internal drives or an external USB. I've been really surprised at how fast those big USB3 drvs work, but had one fail in about a year so they are offline devices mostly. 
 
I suspect that there is something else going on. If I knew what, I wouldn't have started this thread. But, the browser can find my VSTs via the VST scan util, but it doesn't work with the Plug-in manager as it should and use my layouts, as advertised, today anyway. 
 
As I explained, this is an install on a new machine, so it isn't overlaying anything previously which may account for some of the poorly chosen defaults (which should have a first-time installation option screen, rather than just performing some 'default' install profile). I did notice that the manual install's did not need another Reg/SN check, though obviously I was setting the locations manually so I can't comment about how well those were preserved between installs. I also 'discovered' the C3 uninstall option via right click today, but am now very gun-shy of the C3 as it remains full of surprises and lacks options screens, menus, and setup info. Unfortunately, it appears to be the only path to CW DL's and just wildly jumps off into an unknown installation once it gets the files. Unattended yes, what I'd like NO.
  
 

Well, I was still struggling with this until as I was going to report my last failed attempt today, I stumbled upon the solution. Apparently, the Browser is unhappy with 'compressed folders' for the plug-in layout menu's. SPro hasn't had any other issues with compressed folders and I routinely compress just about everything. Once I 'uncompressed' one of my plug menu's, it automagically showed up in the browser. Now, I uncompressed all my other CW data folders as well, just in case My .pgl files now show up. This deserves a mention in the manual, though it sure seems like a 'bug'. This was also causing the layouts option's to not show up menu chains featuring an option to select a layout, but this is also now working as it expected.

I also noticed that when I detach the browser to use the Folders window on the left, it shows me that the Media - 'Plug-in Menu Layouts' selection from the drop-down is not using the Preferences location, but is instead using the user/AppData/Cakewalk path, so that is an additional source of confusion. It appears that most of the other items do follow the Preferences location. This is almost certainly a bug as well.

Using Windows compressed files and folders has no place on a computer these days. Storage is so cheap. Let alone on a DAW where everything needs to be accessed fast

You've seen the result so just undo that setting and all these problems will go away.