konradh
Chuck S, If you read this, you are an exceptionally honorable guy to hang in there after all the hassle my system has caused you.  I would love to continue working with you guys, but want to pay as I go--you guys have done enough.  I will contact you via email.  I think an upgrade and fresh install is the place to start.
 
Craig, Thanks for the assist and for the plug for Trailer of Love.
 
Forum Friends, If you don't know already, Craig mastered the Trailer of Love album, and his mastering, edits, artistic input, and general consultation was invaluable.  He and I jokingly call TOL the "Sgt Pepper of country music," and keeping with that metaphor, Craig is George Martin.

This is my favourite post of the year. Great way to respond to people offering help, and not wishing to take undue advantage of said help. Nice one Konradh!

BTW about the George Martin thing...he liked my attitude about recording, so he wrote the foreword for my book "Home Recording for Musicians." But that tells you much more about him than it does about me. He was a very kind and intelligent person who was unfailingly gracious. He truly was one of a kind...he deserves all the accolades he's received, and then some. I would be thrilled if my obit was even a quarter as cool when I shuffle off to whatever's next.

konradh
Craig and I worked remotely.  I was thrilled I caught him at a time when he was able to take on a project and he brought a lot more to the table than mastering.  He has been making great music a while and if he says something, you should probably listen.   By the way, check out his new album "Neo" on his YouTube channel.  Top shelf stuff!
 
And as for Chuck, I don't think I should get into all the details, but trust me when I say that Sweetwater went way beyond what anyone would have any right to expect.  Yes, I ended up with issues, but I don't know what more they could have done.  I got a couple of good albums out of my set-up so I am just going to move forward with a fresh install.  The interaction of the VS-700, Windows, Sonar, and lots of software makes troubleshooting extremely challenging.  For example, you may remember that EZDrummer 2 wreaked havoc with Sonar for a while until Toontrack provided a fix.  (I still think there is some bad interaction there with X1, but it is manageable.)
 
As mentioned, the VI installs were very tricky and any one of them (e.g., VSL, Hollywood) can tie up your system for many days, but maybe with the latest Sonar and Win 10 things will be OK. I will start now contacting the vendors to make sure I have all the account information.  (I just went through that with iLok and that one is OK after about 6 iterations.  Advice: Never, ever change your email!)
 
It is quite odd that I have issues that I can clearly document and recreate, but that Cakewalk has never heard of it.  Let's wipe the slate clean.
 
I will get this resolved and appreciate all the help and support from you guys and gals.
 
Y'all are great.

Hey Konradh, it's easy for me to spend your money but you should just upgrade to Win10 and whatever computer hardware is needed to make it happen. I'm sure you won't regret it.
Sonar Platinum and Win 10 Pro x64 is the best DAW and OS combination I've worked with.
Get Jim Rosebery (StudioCat) to build your PC, set it up and load all your software.
No offence to Chuck from Sweetwater, but Jim is a regular here, knows Sonar and is gigging musician. I think that's a helluva advantage.

I always get perplexed by these posts. I've been using sonar since sonar 7 and maybe earlier. I've have at least 5 or 6 computers since then and now I run sonar plat on a creation station running 8.1, a
Laptop running win 10 and another running win 7! I've used updated from 8.5 to X1 to x2 to x3 and to platinum. I have a ton of extras including 10 uad cores, wave and a host of other 3rd party plugs and never had any serious issues on any of the aforementioned systems. I am very literate with computers and have worked in the field for many years so at times I've have to do repairs, restores and just plain debugging but I always got things to work. I can only assume those that continue to have serious issues with their machines don't know how to properly manage their resources nor understand how and where to install things. So... in the end the issues are likely not specifically sonar or even cakewalk related but more of an ill conceived computing environment and that is where you need to look to solve your problem

stxx
I am very literate with computers and have worked in the field for many years so at times I've have to do repairs, restores and just plain debugging but I always got things to work. I can only assume those that continue to have serious issues with their machines don't know how to properly manage their resources nor understand how and where to install things. So... in the end the issues are likely not specifically sonar or even cakewalk related but more of an ill conceived computing environment and that is where you need to look to solve your problem

I can't agree here. There are things that are beyond even very computer literate - e.g. if the issues are related to audio driver performance, there is nothing you can do about other than changing the hardware component that goes with it ($$$) ... plus there is an infinite number of combinations of PC components, audio hardware + 3rd party tools ... so there is always a chance of having something that does not fit together
 
I have seen similar performance / crash issues like Konradh is reporting and spent several years trying to fix them. While I could improve the overall situation, some things just could not be solved.  There were still some combinations of plugs and their application that had a high chance of crashing ... which were reported to software and hardware vendors but not addressed as it was of course the responsibility of the other party involved IYKWIM ... eventually support is dropped for one of the components involved and the problem will never be addressed.
 
Luckily I do have a much more stable system now (only 2 crashes in 6+ months), but interestingly it required a lot less "expert intervention" or tweaks. It's win10 pro now with some services turned off, offline, anti-virus properly configured ... plus new audio interfaces with much better drivers (which was really the game changer, yet quite cost intensive)

X1 is Cakewalks worst effort ever. It's a very poor choice for a version to stay on.

I couldn't even get X1 to open and run until they released the X1c update. Yet I'm running the same PC I am now.

Windows 7 is your problem.  I had the same crashing issues for months til Windows 10 came out.  If you have all the drivers for ALL your stuff upgraded to Win 10 compatibility, then you may ask Sweetwater what they think.  It is an option.  Wait...you're using X1d.  My x1d version worked well with Win 7.  Platinum forced me to move to Win 10.  But it works.  I feel for you.  Wait...I think X1 was back in the Win XP days...I may have gotten Win 7 during X2 or 3...now I'm just guessing.  I'll stop.

For the Sweetwater support offered here, this deserves a bump.

Windows 7 was released in late 2009. X1 came out in late 2010. For the record I had very few problems with X1, yes it was quirky and took a while to learn and break old habits, but I successfully mixed a two hour live concert recording and a few other things on it without any major showstoppers or crash issues. 
I switched to Windows 10 about 4 weeks ago and quite frankly have found it to be better overall than 7 after you turn off all the MS BS. Sonar runs great, and all my older plug-ins including the jBridge 32 bit vsts still run as intended.