Well if it comes to that, you could always unplug the network cable and stick with the last stable version of Sonar.
 
Some folks are still using Sonar 8.5 today, and maybe even earlier versions...

jerrydf
Humph. Can you imagine:
"MSDAW had been updated, without your knowledge or permission. There are no rollbacks. If it doesn't work it's obviously a user fault"
 

 
Obviously there's going to be some negative implications and you brought up one, abacab brought up another.  But there are a million other negative implications remaining under Gibson.  Gibson guitars are going to stay around there's enough demand and value that someone will buy the factory and keep the name (essentially what Gibson did with Slingerland), but there's no guarantee that in liquidation Gibson sells Cake IP for cash, and that's the end of Cakewalk.  I certainly hope not, but I just don't know what other demand there will be from another company wanting to take on Cake as an entire company.  The other option might be some private equity firm buying them, who would probably buy them to restructure and sell to someone else.  Maybe Cake has enough cash on hand to buy themselves back?  I have no clue what their internal financials are. 
 
MS did take a lot of flack over the automatic updates, however I really feel they've turned their market perception around in the last 10 years.  It hasn't been without hiccups and certainly there are always going to be issues.