Windows patches once AGAIN wreck my DAW

Wonder what would happen if ya reloaded X1?

I must be lucky because in over a decade of using Windows I have never experienced a single problem from a Windows update. Having said that, is it not possible for the developers of a program like Sonar to assess whether or not new Windows updates could potentially affect the use of their software? After all they should at least be aware of any potential dependency issues with the things Windows Update is changing. 

Wonder what would happen if ya reloaded X1? Mike/digi2ns - Actually I have done at least a reload of the Sonar X1 itself, and it did not respond correctly even though at first I thought it fixed the problems. Soon as I tried to do any edit function, it went nuts again - and that was even on an Audio track, not even messing with the synths. So I think the real damage was in portions of OS or audio driver, even though I totally reloaded my Edirol USB 64x driver as well, with no change. Basically where I'm going from here is to get beyond the backup/restore of files and to protect the OS and boot drive itself, from outside corruption. It's not that I CAN'T recover from this, and I did not lose any project files since they're backed up to external USB drives, it's the fact that to reload the OS, Sonar X1, and EVERY single synth plug-in - is days (or many evenings) of downtime where I can't do any work until it's all back up and reinstalled just right. The real point is, none of us should HAVE to go through that. I used to have a clone program that let me duplicate the boot drive onto an external USB drive, then I could just put it away and replace the original boot drive if/when it crashed - but my present system or, the newer versions of the clone SW don't seem to work that way anymore. I'll continue to look into THAT angle too, as the only thing better than complete backups. Thanks to all who responded! It's just one of those weeks.... but each time we go through one of these painful reloads, we get a better, more organized game plan. - John

David:  some good points also, thanks - and yeah i know how it is SUPPOSED to work in Windows, telling it NOT install any updates - but since Windows 7, I've had occasions where it did indeed DOWNLOAD the updates and go into the "I'm WAITING"  mode,  and then as SOON AS you try to power down, it is taken OUT OF YOUR HANDS and the process dumps on you no matter whether you wanted it or not.  So, THAT is also one of my current beefs with MS about that whole patch process.   Truthfully, and I think a LOT of us feel this way,   Windows XP SP3 was the better OS in a LOT of ways in terms of sheer stability and functionality.  I MAY just go back TO IT this time around because I was also able to shut off and KEEP off, the updates on that if I wanted to do so.
As for Linux, yeah your points are valid.  I just got done researching Ardour as a viable DAW for Linux, but everything's a new curve with new apps and plugins to try and often, also buy (the good stuff is not always free) and for sure, you're correct about documentation.  All food for thought as I prepare to do some things very differently this time around......     -John

mike_mccue

"Anybody else been able to totally shield their DAW system from internet completely?" 

Yes.

My primary DAW runs Win XP sp3 and it hasn't had an update since the day it was assembled.

It works.

I work.

I will not let the internet put my work at risk.

Last year when Cakewalk PR reps chastised me for stating my personal opinion that a DAW shouldn't be any where near the internet I realized that we didn't share the same interests.

When the Cakewalk reps stated that there is "no reason not to" let your DAW see the internet I recognized that I had my best interest in mind and Cakewalk did not.

I am appalled that Cakewalk advises people that there is way to run a DAW safely while connected to the internet. I don't think any one, any where, is qualified to offer such bad advice... but that's just my personal opinion.

I'm sticking with my policy because it works.

Sorry to hear of your frustrating circumstances.

Good luck.

best regards,
mike

There was a time, I thought, that we were supposed to disable all NIC cards, modem's, and such on a DAW and completely remove it from a network. That was DAW Tweaking 101. Get it off the net, disable all networking capabilities, and anti-virus.

The problem these days is, there's no such thing as a dedicated Digital Audio Workstation. Between everything getting so powerful that it can handle many different things at once and so many home users now who can't afford to have a $3,000 dedicated box sitting in the corner that gets used 3 times a month everyone had to change their stance on it.

Problem is, everyone else has coded their stuff to work on a multipurpose PC, Cakewalk hasn't.

Interesting point there Bub.  I used to have (at least) three PC's - one dedicated to serious gaming, one dedicated to not-so-serious music mangling creation and one for everything else (work, email, internet surfing, etc.).  But now I only have one and I've been avoiding both gaming and music creation for the moment.

That said, you'd think things would be advanced enough to allow for doing all those things well...

I remember one upgrade Apple did that broke Photoshop for 2 years.


Me and the other artist that runs Windows got a big laugh out of that.
 

craigb

Interesting point there Bub.  I used to have (at least) three PC's - one dedicated to serious gaming, one dedicated to not-so-serious music mangling creation and one for everything else (work, email, internet surfing, etc.).  But now I only have one and I've been avoiding both gaming and music creation for the moment.

That said, you'd think things would be advanced enough to allow for doing all those things well...

They are.


You can easily play Hi Def games, run Open Office.org, stream movies, and run Reaper all on the same PC. Not to mention video editing.


Times have changed ... but not all the vendors are keeping up with the times.

Sorry to hear about your problems! 

My wife and I have 2 Desktops we share; 
1) Studio DAW, Photoshop and Video. No Internet connection unless I 'must' activate software.  And all incoming content such as updates, audio, video and photos are all scanned thoroughly prior to transfer. 

2) Internet.... 
Since my wife does a lot of cyber-networking with friends and family; E-mails and sharing of photos on a regular basis (daily; morning, noon and night) on average; every month or so I find and remove viruses, most of these viruses are fairly harmless low-risk but still I don't like any of that crap and usually catch them before they cause instability. Another security measure; after each session the cache gets cleaned out and she also uses CClean. 

That said; no matter how cautious, no matter how updated the AV and several other security apps are the risks of catching a virus is still quite real. 

Updates: Windows, AV, Malwarebyte, Spotbot and CClean updates; on both computers I have it set to; Manually, I much prefer to check for updates at least once a week and usually install only important security updates for example; I prefer to stick with my own choice of audio/video players and IE never gets used.  I hate having the above mentioned security programs and such running in the background. Also because my wife's PC can get bogged down easily; it's not a particularly powerful system.   

I also run scans when 'I' want and do so frequently about twice a week or more; should I suspect something isn't quite right for example; Adware can diminish performance and adverts appearing on sites that normally should not be there; these are all signs of likely infection. 

It's not that computers have advanced so much; are way more powerful nowadays; that I can play games; Halo and Sim City all whilst chatting on Skype; all whilst posting feveriously on forums; all whilst doing a critical mixdown of 120 tracks with 5,000 plugins (sorry, a little overly exaggerated there lol) it's because I don't feel the need to push systems so fricken hard and take security risks. I mean seriously; my system would literally be SMOKING; it probably go up in flames! 

wow,  didn't know this would open up such a lot of comments but I've enjoyed hearing from all of you.  Guess it IS a subject near and dear to us all - how to better protect our DAW setup.  Well, my own setup is that I have and use 3 separate notebook computers, so my DAW is dedicated to just THAT - recording projects.  But partly because some apps want internet connection to register, I left it on wireless network capability and kept up faithfully with the AV and Windows updates and patches.....  at this point I just will not bother to DO that anymore.   I have in mind to run a weekly AV scan with ann updated program I can use off a memory stick to at least keep safe the files I do have to xfer on and off.... but other than that, I'm going to really insulate this DAW from here on out.

Interestingly, I wasted abou 2 hours again last night with a system restore back to 1 Jan, unload and reload of my Edirol USB 64x driver, blocked all internet access and updates from coming back in, and totally reinstalled Sonar X1 over-top my existing  install.   Result?   Soon as I brought up a Project, and tried to work with a track or even just import a .wav into a new audio track, Sonar crashed with the main .exe stopped working error, forcing me to go to Task Mgr to end it, as I otherwise had no keyboard or mouse working.   So I can't even imagine what really happened that all this couldn't resolve,  but as of tonight I have an appointment with my Windows OS restore DVD, every single Sonar and soft synth DVD, and just tons of fun.   Restoring all my project files is the easiest part, as they're always backed up on an external USB drive.  But sheesh.   What crap to go through.   Thanks again for your input, everyone!    Cheers!      - John  

John, these sort of things are the worst part of working with a DAW for me... it seems like it is always something (sooner or later), and it is always frustrating. I hope you get it srted out quickly and easily. I have mine set to notify me and I choose what to download and update. I balked at this one. like I said above but even though I stopped the download, when I shut off my computer it alerted me to NOT shut off my computer and proceeded to install two updates and configured windows this AM when I restarted it.

I am not certain why I wrote all that is to follow but after I wrote it I came back to say this... maybe someone is wondering what to do, weighing pros and cons and scared... don't be.

If funds weren't so limited I would buy another computer for browsing, or better yet a Studiocat for my DAW (I have been wanting that for a long time but it is the (always something thing) in January my insurance deductibles started over with a 1k on prescriptions and 10k on medical. I am at the age where I will probably meet my scrip deductible in a month... (I wont get into the payments except to say they are over 800 bucks a month for my wife and I( The deductible went from $2.5K to 5K to 10K in about 2 months back when our glorius leader started talking about healthcare reform. BTW, it also went, at that time, from an 80/20 plan to 70/30 and they added a 40 dllar co-pay for the first 6 office visits, which NO doctors office can understand... so maybe soon I will get a desktop and 24" monitor. It isn't ALL bad, the reason my costs are so high is: I started a business in 1989 and my wife started a CPA firm in the 90s and she started selling repurposed vintage fabrics on ETSY.com, then got an invite to sell on One Kings Lane. I don't want to violate the TOS but (God is good) she gets a check every week now from One Kings Lane for between 700 and 1500 a week besides her ETSY sales. She is "the virtuous woman" mentioned in Proverbs. She is catnapcottage on Etsy, on OKL she is just part of the store, no individual recognition but for that money, who cares? I run an exterminating business. I apopogize for goingso far afield but sometimes I ramble. I don't mean to hijack the thread in any way but you know... it is all related. For anyone's future... I HIGHLY recommend starting your own business if you can. Use minimal initial investment, use what you have if possible and rely on your "signifigant other" to see you through the beginning. IIRC, I made a little over 200 dllars the first month. I bought a toolbox for my truck, a used 1 gal sprayer, a container of pesticide, and a backpack sprayer and started knocking on doors. I cannt be "laid off", I cannot be fired. I built my business in the wealthiest neighboroods in NW Atlanta and east Cobb County (Marietta)... so I am a bit recession proof too. Yeah, the healthcare is higher because of no group plan but the Pros far outweigh the cons. I take every opportunity to tell people that, if they can... work fror yourself, it is SO much better.
Times are hard, jobs are scarce and many people do not have a vision for what they are capable of. Don't sell yourself short, you can make it happen. Just don't start out with payments that are a burden... that is where people fail.

So, what I started out to say is... I intend to resolve this by buying a second computer, a dedicated DAW... just not this month. John, sorry for the ramble. I hope you get your computer sorted out with little trouble. I am interested and will keep an eye on this thread.

Julien

 I tried to keep my DAW off the web but even though I have other computers I can't seem to do that and I have paid the price for it a few times because I allowed someone else to use the computer and they got a virus, I have picked up a few myself.I have gotten 99.9% of them all removed.

 Im my experiences, if a person keeps another protected computer for  serious surfing or financial transactions,emails etc and  then a virus protected DAW for downloading music software and going to known safe sites, the risk is very minimal.

 The worst things to come along are Trojan back doors. These can pretty much get around even something like Malwarebytes. I know I have one in my DAW now. It doesn't make my system unstable and the people at Malwarebytes said they could help but recommended I wipe my system and start over.  Under absolutely no conditions do I ever do ANYTHING of a private nature on that DAW. I have run my system with it now for months with no problems on the DAW end. ....I'm thinking when I upgrade to win 8 and X2a I'll pull the plug on it in its present situation.....so yeah bad stuff can happen. The good news is that the computer is still a well working DAW.....Think of how many people have something like this and don't know about it.
 
 Windows patches are for the most part security fixes to threats. Sometimes the new fix misidentifies something in your system as a threat and removes or quarintines .
 
 You can opt to do a system restore to an earlier time and this might correct ther problem.( I see you did that)...I hate to ask this, but are you SURE the files that were downloaded were legit windows update files? It might not hurt to do a seperate virus scan to see if there is a bug in your system.

 Like others I have been very fortunate in that I have never had a problem coming from an update. Most of mine were from viruses.

 I worked with linux a little bit. I hear Rosegarden is better than it ever was but in order to work with linux you need to be pretty code literate . Linux based programs and procedures are almost never straight forward. Maybe I just had bad personal experiences, but rarely did linux programs ever go off without a hitch and it only takes a small problem to blow two hours of time you could be recording.Once set up they are rock solid though.

 You can get Ubuntu for free. I had pretty good luck with that but when it came to adding programs to it I always got tripped up.
 
 If all else fails I would restore from the factory DVD and turn off automatic updates, then I would either stay off the web on that computer or only go where things are ok,like to update Sonar.

 I think the trend in the future could involve being connected. We already see the apps everywhere and the cloud. Everything is encouraging toward a connectedness. How this will pan out and what is on the drawing board I have no idea but I have a feeling that this is the direction we are eventually headed into.
 
 If I could make a future prediction it would be that there will be apps for our DAWs or our DAWs could be apps.
 
 

Cudos to you Bub.... it isn't easy for most people to change, even when they are not pleased with what they are getting. I've given it some thought because it is so cheap, there is another I was looking at last week, Harrison M-i-x-b-u-s. Sometimes I wish I were not so "invested" but these are so cheap, why not have them too... I'll be interested in how it turns out for you. I enjoy reading the forum over "there". The "Yep" thread should be required reading.

I have an old Dell Inspiron 5100, I have an idea... I could reformat, reinstall XP SP3 on it and do all the tweaks. That might be fun. Keep me posted.

J

I'm firmly in the 'ain't broke, don't fix' camp. My friend's son built me this PC 5 years ago, with XP SP3. I turned off automatic updates, and have never updated anything to do with Windows.

It's on the 'net (duh..yeah..), I run AVG daily, Malwarebytes and Adaware weekly, and have had maybe 2-3 Trojans in the last 5 years. One caused me to do a system restore to 7 days previous, but that's it.

I'm working...

I had numerous problems with XP SP3 and Mcafee. I have had almost zero problems wtih Windows 7 and Norton 360. 360 blocks everything nasty. I is running very well with W7, IMO. I really don't remember getting anything bad with W7 and 360... however I spent many hours removing this and that malware with XP and Mcafee.

J