Hello sonarites!
 
I'm tired of dual boots (too much maintenance... ok... i'm lazy...) and I am wondering if installing / activating a WIN10 virtual machine on my DAW would impact it's performance when working in SONAR...
 
I would use this virtual machine for basic everyday needs other than music production.
 
In other words, when the VM is OFF, is it actually 100% off at that point or is there some kind of heavy background service still running on my DAW somewhere?
 
Thanks!

I've never used VM, but I've seen reports of users with peripheral problems in VM (e.g. printers).  I don't think it would be a good idea for general PC use. 
 
I use mine for both general PC work and Internet, and for my DAW.  When I use Sonar I disable the NIC (Ethernet) so I'm off line and that eliminates a potential dropout problem (that I've had in the past with the NIC enabled). 
 
One thought, join the Win 10 "Insiders Program" and get the Win 10 Insider version(s) on a dual boot.  You could then use the Insider OS for general PC and boot to the other Win 10 for Sonar.

You can use a DAW for general-purpose duty.
The more "general-purpose", the more diligent you need to be about keeping the machine clean/lean.
You also need to be diligent about having proper backups (you should do this regardless).
 
 

Dual boot is necessary if you need to connect audio hardware directly to the OS, such as with DAW software.  A VM guest OS doesn't support real-time audio or MIDI, as far as I know.
 
I have not used Hyper V yet, but I installed the free Oracle VirtualBox https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox on my DAW PC. But just like any other program, when VirtualBox is not running it consumes no resources, other than some GB allocated to its virtual hard drive (which can be on an external drive).  Depending on how you set it up, it may install some network drivers for use by the guest VM's when they are running, but they stay out of the way unless you are actually using them. 
 
I have also worked with the free VMWare Player, which also works well, but I prefer the full featured VirtualBox better.
 
VM's are good choice for a secondary OS that is not tied to specific hardware drivers.  Much simpler to use than dual boot, once you get it set up. I currently run Windows XP in a VM, as well as a few Linux distros.  If you run Windows as a guest, you will need an additional license to activate it.  I also tested with a Windows 7 Pro install and it ran fine as a VM guest.
 
The mouse and keyboard is captured when you open a VM window, and returns to the host when you minimize the window. 
 
Video, sound, and network drivers don't seem to be an issue today.  USB and CDROM devices can pass thru to the guest VM.  You can share clipboard and/or specific folders, if desired, between host and guest. 
 
If you want, you can even run a seamless desktop, and have windows from the guest VM appear directly on your host workspace.  How cool is that?  I have some old software that will not run on Windows 10, but this lets me run it on XP, side by side with my Win 10 apps. 
 
So far, I can find no drawbacks with this method, other than the comment at the top of this post.

And I forgot to mention, if you have dual monitors, you can have the VM session on a separate monitor from the host. 

Why bother installing a VM or dual booting? There's nothing much about a PC set up to be a good DAW that would interfere with general PC usage, and if anything interferes with the DAW side of things just don't run that software and a DAW at the same time. Most DAW Windows tweaking nowadays amounts to over-riding the energy conservation stuff, and software won't suffer because of that.

I used to dual boot back in the days of XP and Vista but stopped bothering at Win 8. Can't say I found the DAW performance suffering at all. Though I don't let anything auto-update whnever it wants to, which could cause a problem, and I set up Windows Defender to ignore anything to do with Sonar and audio files, then switched off real-time monitoring when using Sonar. I've avoided wifi networking on PCs for years, I've yet to find an active ethernet LAN connection causing a problem.

tlw
Why bother installing a VM or dual booting? There's nothing much about a PC set up to be a good DAW that would interfere with general PC usage, and if anything interferes with the DAW side of things just don't run that software and a DAW at the same time. Most DAW Windows tweaking nowadays amounts to over-riding the energy conservation stuff, and software won't suffer because of that.

I used to dual boot back in the days of XP and Vista but stopped bothering at Win 8. Can't say I found the DAW performance suffering at all. Though I don't let anything auto-update whnever it wants to, which could cause a problem, and I set up Windows Defender to ignore anything to do with Sonar and audio files, then switched off real-time monitoring when using Sonar. I've avoided wifi networking on PCs for years, I've yet to find an active ethernet LAN connection causing a problem.

I think the whole point here is that you can get the DAW set up and tweaked just the way you like it, and don't risk messing with it by installing general purpose applications and internet facing stuff.  Use Windows 7, 8, or 10, whatever you like best, and lock it down.  Only update as needed, and make as few changes to the environment as absolutely necessary.  Smooth sailing for the DAW.
 
Then use a VM as your second personal computer.  Put all your crap on that, your office stuff, email, surf the internet.  Update it at will.  Just take snapshots along the way, or make clones, and roll it back if you crap it up, or it gets malware.  The whole VM thing is sandboxed from your DAW software.  And by using bridged networking via your PC network adapter, it gets its own IP address directly from your LAN router.
 
If this sounds like it's too much trouble for you, then just ignore it.  Run your PC however you like :-)

I think it is hard enough to get MIDI and audio to work together real time especially for high track count, lots of effects and/or instruments.  I would hate to add another layer of abstraction to the "mix".
 

You can use a DAW for general-purpose tasks.
Just need to be all the more diligent... (keeping machine clean/lean, proper backup, etc)

patm300e
I think it is hard enough to get MIDI and audio to work together real time especially for high track count, lots of effects and/or instruments.  I would hate to add another layer of abstraction to the "mix".
 

I think that you may have misunderstood the question.  The OP was asking if a VM could co-exist on his DAW without interfering, not whether to run his DAW in a VM.
 
My answer is absolutely yes it can.
 
I have been using VM's successfully for several years, and they are a great way of testing software, or older versions of Windows, without risking your main OS setup.
 
You are correct that real-time use of the hardware, such as audio or MIDI, is not possible from within a viritualized (abstracted) environment (yet).