mudgel
Why do you need to be connected to the Internet when you’re tracking? Or doing anything in Sonar for that matter except transferring files which would be part of preparations which get done before tracking etc.

I don't need to be connected to the Internet when I'm tracking, but since I have my laptop configured so nothing is being pushed to it there is no need to disconnect it.
 

?

raisindot

abacab
I have Macrium scheduled to image my system drive each day.  To roll back just boot from the Windows PE rescue media and restore.  Using the built-in wizard, the rescue media can be built automatically on CD/DVD or USB thumb drive.

Hi, I'm interested in this but I'd like to know a little more. For one thing, does the free version image everything on the "C" drive, including stuff in folders, or just the things needed to run Windows? Second, is the "Windows PE rescue" device different than the external USB hard drive you'd use to "store" the image? 

The free version of Macrium Reflect does everything a home user would need.  And yes, the Windows PE rescue media is separate and much smaller in size than your backup image location.
 
An "image" of "C" drive copies everything on the "C" drive to an image file container using a secondary, or external, drive as your image repository.  You can store one or more backup images in that location, up to the capacity of that backup drive.  The process is similar to cloning a drive, except the image output is to a file, rather than creating another physical drive exactly like the original.
 
The rescue media is a bootable device that is separate from the image repository drive.  To restore your "C" drive, you need to boot from the rescue media rather than your "C" drive. 
 
The restore step copies the backup image from your backup repository, overwriting the "C" drive.  So when the restore is completed, your "C" drive is exactly like it was when the image was created.
 
This is a great way to roll back your system drive, or in the event that your system ever becomes unbootable or the hard drive crashes and you need to replace it. 

That sounds like what I need. Can you store an image file on the same external hard drive used to store other things (like manual backups of files and folders?)

remove last update and just turn updates off...
 
Edit: Control panel / Admin tool / services / scroll down to windows updates /
double click on Win updates. set to manual or disable and you will need to hit [STOP] as well...If you set it to manual you can still update your Win Defender from within Win Defender.  
 

raisindot
That sounds like what I need. Can you store an image file on the same external hard drive used to store other things (like manual backups of files and folders?)

Sure, just create a new folder on the external for your image files.  When you create the backup definition in Macrium, just navigate to that folder with the drive connected and set that as the target path.  Easy!
 
The main thing to keep in mind is that images take a lot of space and I would recommend a 500GB to 1TB drive, depending on how much of your "C" drive is being used.  The image process will compress the file a bit, and only copies used disk sectors.  For example, with my 250GB system drive using about 150GB of data, my images are running about 115GB each right now.  I like to keep 5 days of daily (M-F), plus a weekly (Saturday) and a monthly (1st Monday) image on my backup drive.  So I can max out 1TB pretty fast.  The cool thing with Macrium is you can set how many versions of each scheduled job to keep, before it deletes the oldest, so you can manage space easily.
 
So I set up one folder for a scheduled daily job, another for scheduled weekly job, etc.  Set and forget, until you need it, that is!!! 

Another great thing about images is that you can usually mount them as virtual drives that you can browse directly in Windows explorer and drag and drop files over from them to any other folder on the system.  So say you accidentally deleted something, it is simple to just grab a copy from an older image.  No restore needed!
 
That is also a good method if you build a new computer and want to migrate documents or projects.  Just mount up an image from the old PC and copy away! 
 

Update 1709 knackered my Addictive Drums - as usual.  Had to de-authorise and re-authorise my computer. (AD: surely you can fix this silly thing?)
But the update also queered my Steinberg Halion Sonic E-licenser authorisation.
Maybe other things yet undiscovered are also messed up...

 

The major Windows updates (e.g. FCU) change your computer ID, just like when there were different Windows versions (Win 7, Win 8, etc.) following upgrades to newer Windows versions.  Some plugins and applications will need to be re-activated after the upgrade.

1709 also seems to be messing with my audio drivers. Each time I boot up now I have to disable/enable them and reboot to make them work.