Hello everyone!
 
I have some very old cakewalk projects (circa 2003) that don't open in SONAR.  They didn't open on PC and I've since switched over to Mac.  I downloaded the SONAR Mac Prototype, but same problem.  Since switching to Mac, I'm assuming there's nothing i can do about finding an older version of Cakewalk...  I do still have a PC, it's just not set up.    If I were to get the PC up and running, are there older versions of Cakewalk that I can download?

Hi. Have you tried to hold Shift down while opening the project?
That opens it in safe mode (I am just assuming that it works the same on Mac).
Try bypassing all plugins.
All the best.

I occasionally get this issue, and use Sonar 8.5 to load the project and re-save as a more up-to-date cwp version. This cures it 99% of the time. I think only once I had to load it and save it again in X1.
 
You should see all previous versions of Sonar you owned in your product download area.
 
I'm seeing all the versions of Sonar I bought back to Sonar 1 XL. Cakewalk Pro Audio 7 and 9 aren't on the list (I guess they're too old!), but I've got the discs for them, so it's not an issue.
 
Failing that, you should be able to pick up an older version of Cakewalk on ebay for around $25.
 
If you think this may be something you'll do a lot, you may consider installing virtualbox on your Mac and installing XP (or Win7 32 bit) as a virtual machine with an older version of Sonar on there. It may not be great performance-wise for recording/playback but you can certainly use it for loading/exporting old projects.
 
M.

OP has not mentioned the TYPE of files he tries to open. "cakewalk projects" is not precise, cakewalk had several programs before. I guess we all assume that are CPW, but that can be something else.

I had a similar problem with some files (some, not all) and I currently use Sonar Platinum x64.
 
The remedy was simply opening those files with a 32 bit Sonar (Platinum as well, or even X3 or whatever you prefer) and I saved in cwp format all those old wrk files.
 
Now everything seems fine.
 
Bye,
 
Giorgio
 

msmcleod
 
If you think this may be something you'll do a lot, you may consider installing virtualbox on your Mac and installing XP (or Win7 32 bit) as a virtual machine with an older version of Sonar on there. It may not be great performance-wise for recording/playback but you can certainly use it for loading/exporting old projects.
 
M.

I have managed to successfully install Sonar 8.5 Producer on a 32-bit WinXP guest virtual machine running on VirtualBox (on my Win10 PC).
 
I installed ASIO4ALL in the WinXP virtual machine, so the audio playback works a bit better than the default virtual Intel audio driver that VirtualBox presents to the VM guest OS.  But that should be good enough for opening an older project, playing back, saving, etc.  Was able to play back some audio MIDI demo projects OK.
 
I got curious about the MIDI input in a virtual machine, so since I have Roland A-300PRO with WinXP drivers, I installed those drivers and plugged in the keyboard.  VirtualBox let me connect the USB keyboard via the USB pass-through from the host system, so with the driver installed in the guest, it worked!  But latency is not that usable for live playing.  Not terrible, but not that great.
 
So if you just need to run an older OS with an older Sonar version to open and save projects, this solution should work, especially if you don't need to deal with the audio or MIDI in real time.
 
One thing I did also notice about the A-300PRO on the virtual machine, is that the driver made the 9-pin DIN MIDI interface on the keyboard available to the virtual machine, so that opens up the possibility of connecting external instruments.  Might have to see about loading up an old copy of MidiQuest and a Roland rack synth and see how that rolls!