I thought this would be a good place to post what I'd posted elsewhere, since it's regarding 32 to 64 bit compatibility.
It's been said elsewhere and I agree. Feature-wise, Sonar 8.5.3 does about all I'd need it do. A polyphonic version of V-Vocal to match Melodines latest, a vocalign type of thing (nice if it worked on out of phase mics for drums too). Those I'd say would be practical, but those really aren't what I'm that much after. I really would like a huge 32 bit to 64 bit repair.
Here is a copy of the 'wish-list' I posted elsewhere. Others may have encountered this issue, it would be one great fix...
Welcome to Bit Bridge in 64 bit. I have the same issue. Every 32 bit plug-in I use that comes up in Bit Bridge has that top classic preset line (the one Sonar gives us) eliminated. It's replaced by one that's aligned with that particular plug-ins preset-save feature. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as convenient to use. Making it all but impossible to integrate presets you have in an old XP Pro SP3 system you created those in.
The file system Sonar creates to save those in the 'presets' folder is not easily navigatable, making it all but impossible to find those manually. Further, when you open a Bundle created in the old system, even if you've installed the same plug-ins to the new system, in what you thought was the same VST plug-in folder, Sonar does not reference them. anymore.
1) Fix Bit Bridge, so you can open 32 bit plug-ins and that old preset bar will be back on top again.
2) When a plug-in isn't found, an error message pops up, you can click past it. But once the program is open, you see the shell for the old place where the plug in was there, indicating it wasn't found. I would LOVE if Sonar would allow you to chose the new location of the VST .dll, and have it migrate that preference so in the future, it would look there when opening programs from another system where they were installed to a different place.
Or even the same place, I think the jump to Win 7 64 bit was what'd knocked Sonar off-kilter on this one. I have so many great presets and I really don't want to rebuild and re-save every one to use them in Sonar, or have to replace manually every single plug-in that errors for not being found in the new installed place.
I understand elsewhere someone said it may be from the old bundle I had in XP SP3 32 bit having a 32 bit version of the plug-ins it doesn't find (for example, my Wavearts Track Plug) that is causing this. The new installed one in the new PC is the 64 bit install of that. Either way, this suggestion address that fully.
It goes beyond where you installed plug-ins, or what bit version they are. Simply. The plug-in IS installed in the new machine, although at 64 bit. I can open it fine in Sonar. But I can't open a Bundle it was embedded in (sometimes many instances on many tracks) and get it to open.
It's really just a matter of getting Sonar to either 'look' for it, or telling it where the .dll is (clicking on the install folder) and from then on, Sonar will 'know'. I do this with my Steinberg The Grand, for example. I moved the sample library it accesses once. I went to open it and it loaded, but couldn't find the samples. But immediately I can browse and find them, and then in the future, it will look where I went to find them, to find them automatically. I'd want this done for the plug-in in general, not each instance.
Meaning, if I have 8 Wavearts Track Plugs in a bundle, I find the location for the plug-in, in general, it resolves it, without doing it for all eight. Then if I open another bundle with that plug-in, it remembers where I browsed to to find it (or more ideally, where Sonar would 'auto-seek' it if its missing). A LOT of people are upgrading to 64 from 32, or to different machines with installs in different folders. This is a huge issue to resolve.