Need help with Sonar installation pathways

Hi there, Vlada, and anybody else that wanders into the thread.
 
In answer to your posted questions:
 
1) Command Center downloads the installation files needed for a given component that it will take over the management of, and that is by design.  Once a given installation has finished, the only time any of that particular set of files would be needed again would be if you needed to either install again or do a rollback to that version some time from a later version (like if you install 2017.01, and all seems OK, then you later on install 2017.02  and then have major problems, you might choose to roll back to version 2017.01).  I will typically keep the downloaded install files for Sonar for the currently installed version, and 1 or 2 prior versions.  For other components I usually keep the currently installed version and no more than 1 prior version.
 
2) I have had the paths for installation and content altered to an alternate drive since I began using the Cakewalk Command Center, and I have done many installs and rollbacks and re-installs since then.  All have had zero issues.
 
3) Yes you could leave whatever you have already downloaded to the C: for Cakewalk Command Center and just start using a new location on an alternate drive for moving forward.  There is no need or benefit to doing that, as moving all of the already downloaded content over to the new location would result in Cakewalk Command Center having ready access to that content if needed.  Those downloaded files do not get altered by anything once downloaded, so they are perfectly safe in their new location.  Any missing samples issues with moving Rapture, Rapture Pro, or Dimension Pro are essentially registry related and nothing like that happens with Cakewalk Command Center, so any of those missing samples issues just do not apply whatsoever to Command Center.  As long as the paths specified in the Cakewalk Command Center Paths tab are valid, meaning pointing to the correct locations for downloaded content and install files, it will all work just fine.
 
4)  My prior advice to uninstall the currently installed Cakewalk components was not meant to be taken as being absolutely necessary.  I represented it as being an EASIER choice (and safer, by being less prone to user error), than otherwise doing manual moving of components and content around, because by using Cakewalk Command Center to remove and then install again using Cakewalk Command Center avoids any need to go in and manually locate and update any Windows Registry path pointers.  Many times, folks who manually edit registry paths end up not quite getting it right, and really getting things a bit twisted up.  It is my recommendation that to avoid any such issues - using Cakewalk Command Center to first uninstall the Cakewalk components you have already installed, then altering the Command Center paths for Content to a different hard drive, then moving the existing Command Center downloaded files to a location on a different drive, then setting the corresponding path in Command Center to point to where your downloaded install files now live on the alternate disk drive, then using Command Center to install the Cakewalk components again, IS both a viable method, and a method that would eliminate the potential for issues in the registry from attempting to manually move things around.
 
So - the above are my thoughts on your posted questions.
 
The other questions/issues we were discussing about strategies for placing sample content and other types of data on different drives, and all of that - would be better addressed in a separate thread, in my opinion.
 
Bob Bone

Does anyone else want to take a stab at responding to Vlada's questions?  Or either agreeing or disagreeing with my responses?  I'd like her to feel a bit more of a consensus on her situation, if possible.
 
Thanks, 
 
Bob Bone

Thank you Mr Cook.  I accept that directory junctions are also a valid means of moving content and installation files off of a given drive and onto a different - in this case larger, drive, or in other cases moving things like sample libraries or Cakewalk Projects and such to different drives for making performance improvements with faster access to different types of data, or collections of data.
 
Either approach is valid - in the case of Vlada's music computer, she has ended up spending vast amounts of cash for larger and larger C: drives - now up to a $700 900 GB solid-state giant, because of everything defaulting to get put onto that C: drive - either method of moving the Cakewalk Content and the Installation Files to another hard drive to free up space used on C:, would fit the bill of improving performance, as well as making is possible to keep the amount of space NEEDED on the C: way way down from where she has gotten herself to by her prior approach.
 
For example, I have multiple computers, but all have the same basic approach to managing file/folder PLACEMENT for space and performance reasons.
 
My primary music computer has multiple hard drives - it currently has a 110 GB solid-state drive that is the C: drive.  On that drive, I have Windows, all applications, including all of my plugins (effects and synths) and then the 2 hidden folders: Appdata for my user ID, and ProgramData.  
 
I have moved all of my user folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, etc) to a different hard drive - other than the C: drive, which is solid-state, all other hard drives are currently 7,200 2 TB HDD's.  All drives are also SATA III.  To accomplish the relocation of these user folders, I chose to alter the Location of those folders, but the directory junction method would have worked fine as well.
 
I then dealt with moving all of the Cakewalk Content and the installation files managed by Cakewalk Command Center to a different hard drive than the default, by my altering the Paths for Content and Installation Files in the settings panel of the Cakewalk Command Center, then running all of the installs for all of the components managed by Command Center.  Again, the directory junction method would have worked just as well.  So, for all of the Cakewalk 'stuff' (Dimension Pro, Rapture, Rapture Pro, Session Drummer 3, Perfect Space impulse responses, Sonar Platinum content - Templates, Track Icons, Picture Cache, Groove Clips, Cakewalk Sample Data, Themes, etc... all of that stuff is kept off the C:, freeing up WELL over 125 GB of space for me - which would never have even fit onto my little 110 GB C: in the first place.
 
All of my Kontakt sample libraries, both factory and 3rd-party, the entire EastWest Composer Cloud sample library content, and all of that sort of thing, is also kept off of the C: drive - I have well over 3 TB of sample content spread out over several additional 2 TB 7,200 RPM SATA III HDD's.  I was careful when installing the EastWest Composer Cloud content, to make sure I specified one of the additional 2 TB drives, and the same for the Kontakt sample libraries, when I installed Komplete 8 Ultimate, I made sure to specify an alternative drive for the sample content, again avoiding filling up the C: (which would not have been remotely close to big enough, of course).  The directory junction approach would also have worked for placement of these libraries.
 
So, when I installed Cakewalk, and took the default locations for the programs and the 64-bit plugins, and the 32-bit plugins, those components and plugins all did indeed go to the C:, so Sonar itself, Dim Pro, Rapture, Rapture Pro, Session Drummer, etc all of those programs and the plugins (effects and instruments) got loaded to their default locations on the C: drive.  One nice thing about many programs - other than Cakewalk, is that they will check to see if there is a repository for VST plugins and even though the install may be for Native Instruments, it will 'see' that the C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Vstplugins folder is already there, and it will suggest that folder for placement of the Native Instruments plugins - it's kind of nice that it does that.
 
So anyways, by limiting things on the C: drive to be only Windows itself, and mostly Programs and VST Plugins, even though I have a total sample library size of a bit over 3 TB, and another TB or so of Cakewalk Projects, and close to another TB of my user files (documents, pictures, videos, etc), my actual size of what is on the C: drive - the tiny little 110 GB solid-state drive I got for $39 brand new, the total size of stuff on that drive is around 60 GB.  So that little bitty solid-state drive is only a smidgen over 50% full.  And that is with well over 1200 instruments, somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 sounds, and over 1200 plugins.
 
With more and more folks building or converting existing computers with 1 solid-state drive as the C: drive, and then some number of regular 7,200 RPM SATA III HDD's for the content (or even some mix of those drives and perhaps additional solid-state drives too), understanding how to keep the C: drive from filling up DOES require some learning, and some thinking, and some careful observation and control when performing installations, but there is NO reason to have to pay for massive and massively expensive solid-state drives used as a primary drive - the C: drive.  Storage can be obtained inexpensively, and built larger when needed - but still at very very modest cost, while still delivering wonderful levels of performance.
 
Bob Bone
 

Thank you for your responses. I am looking at my current (soon to be old) computer and see Cakewalk Content folder full of crap I never knew was existing. I guess important question is what can and can not be moved. What is critical for Sonar operations and what is "bloatware"? I don't need loops. Can I just delete them? I would delete whole Content folder but then there track Icons, Impulse responses (I don't know what that is), Drum Replacer (I may need that one day but not soon enough to keep on C drive), Logs- I can delete those, right?
 
I see rapture pro on my C drive in Content folder and it has "Programs" folder. When I was installing Rapture Pro, I remember selecting different installation path for the samples to be installed on another drive. I spent hours with support going through the registry and redirecting what needed to be redirected to the right folder on the right drive. So how do I even have "Programs" folder on C? Samples folder inside Rapture Pro contains like 5 samples. So all the other samples must be on another drive (Likely D ) but I cant find it there.
 
I am looking on my D drive, and I see folder "Command center", and inside of it Cache, Downloads and Settings. In Downloads I found Sonar Platinum SetUp, from 2015, Sonar Platinum UP, Undertone Collection Set up. I do not remember changing the pathways for Downloads folder in Command Center. How is it ended up on D drive? Ok, it is possible that I changed pathway and don't remember. But how did it get back on C drive? I know I did not say, "Hm... My download folder is on D- I am going to move it back to see". At some point it moved itself back to C!   
 
So like Scook says- the path gets changed or is not reliable. I don't know what the best way to do it. I already changed Samples folder for Rapture pro and it was a disaster- about 60% of programs were missing samples but other 40% some how were working. So we reassigned pathways using RegEdit, but I don't know where the folder is now.
 
I am rebuilding perfectly functional computer and start all over because I need to avoid this mass. How do I not create it?
 
I am ok with Sonar installing only important stuff on C. Can I delete what I don't need? Or is it going to detect that it is missing and install it again with update?
 
I already installed Sonar with Downloads folder on C. Can I delete Downloads now? I should be able to- they already installed, right?
 
I need to install Rapture Pro. (It supposed to contain Dimension Pro, right- in includes it already)? I am ok with my Sonar on C drive. I like to delete loops and downloaded files. But I like to install Rapture Pro to another drive- at least- the samples. And I don't want it to not work like last time forcing me to call tech support and use Reg Edit.
 
From my experience, it should be ok to change Download folder now, after Sonar Platinum was installed. Because it does not care where it located, does it? Thank you.

As I said in my first post, You can delete all the content of the CC downloads folder, but you should have it backed up to a second drive first. 
You can use those files to install Sonar on a second computer or if you need to roll back that's not hard to do by simply drag and drop or copying the version back to the original download folder. 
I say if your not adept at higher level computer management, which most of us are not, then keep it simple and leave things as they are. 
When people start talking about registry edits, they have gone well beyond the scope of the average user. 
 
But just about anyone can figure out how to copy a folder to a second back up drive and delete the contents afterwards.  
 
If your SSD C drive is becoming full because there is no way to avoid it, then possibly you need a bigger C drive. 
So what if it costs $100 more, just think of the time it will save you not to have to deal with this issue. 
 
 And you certainly are not forced to download all the available content from CCC. I never download anything that looks like it's a loop collection. Or the Anderton stuff.   You can tell ccc to hide these items from the list.   
 
,
 

Hi Vlada. I am out of town tonight and back in the morning and will respond to each one of your questions before Noon Saturday.
 
Bob Bone

One thing, why are your data drives lettered P and S??  I'm not sure , but that might cause issues after something like a famous windows update that will change these back to defaults. ??  
I have found that Windows likes to name drives in the order they are plugged into the MoBo. sata ports. 
A drive was always floppies so we just never see that anymore. 
B I guess was a second floppy.
C is always the OS, I don't think this can be changed   and the drive plugged into SATA port 0 or 1. 
D is normally the DVD drive and is also port 0 or 1.  
E will be the drive plugged into the next port ( 3 ) 
F the next ( 4)  
External drives ( or sticks)  will share the same number G 
If you leave one plugged in  and plug in a second external it will be H and so on. 
 
I could be dead wrong but this is the way all my computers seem to be and somehow I don't think it wise to change this. 
 
 

Once I learned about makelink from scook, I started using it in preference to the other methods mentioned.

There is also a utility that created a right click menu item that makes it as simple to create a link as selecting the destination and the source folder for the link.

Here's a link to my OneDrive where there's a folder with all the necessary files included.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ahg7GEVUP0Hfx0MrOR1Fbrn72zMj

In the Native Instruments Service Centre there is a setting to Delete files after installation. If you need the files later you can always download them again from your online NI account.

on windows your vst3 folder should be under "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3"

I am thinking to change Download location as well as Content location to make sure Rapture pro goes there. Rapture Pro includes Dimension Pro, so no need to install Dimension Pro- I never use it any way.

I wanted to share this article about endurance- talking about how much you can write to SSD before it locks itself and becomes "Read Only". Looks like it is ok to use it for recording, one thing to keep in mind is that SSDs can not stay without power for long.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-ssd-600p-nvme-endurance-testing,4826.html
 
I installed select parts of Cakewalk Sonar and Rapture Pro- it took 60 GB of my C drive. (I did not delete downloads yet). I only installed Rapture Pro, not Rapture Session. I did not install Dimension Pro or regular Rapture. Installed Z3ta 2, not Zeta classic. Did not install any loops or SI Bass, Piano and what ever else it was- only necessary stuff. All Rapture Pro samples were installed to S drive, not on C, and still- 60 GB- seriously? this is not expectable!  
 
I can not test if it works because my FireWire cable is too short. lol.