I turned off windows update and will continue to use.
 
Melodyne ARA and Pro Channel are too handy.
 
I have dabbled with Reaper and that is where I will go.  I have never made a dime off my DAW so I am not going to sink too much more into this hobby.
 
People making there living off this I feel for.
 
JR

batsbrew

sharke
To those arguing that people have used old versions of Sonar for years, and that Windows updates never broke them:
 

 
CASE IN POINT:
 
i took my DAW off line, the day i got it dialed in.
 
8 years later, what do i care what windows does?
 
it became completely irrelevant.

Well, that's great if you can keep your computer offline. Most can't. 

Funkfingers
I've been on the Sonar Beta team and allways felt that the Sonar team never really listened to simple suggestions
on making the program more user friendly. Simple suggestions as a tap-tempo,a better tempo adjustment control (a la Cubase) a tuner up front.
Theres other quirky stuff,like the clip handling and the midi editing that I never really liked.
On the whole,Sonar is a great program but suffer from bad decision making that made the program
a bit to awkward to be called user-friendly. To awkward for me as a musician. Many often needed functions hidden in menues and a strange quantization.And I thought and hoped that the Sonar team would eventually lead the development towards userfriendliness for musicians by listening and implementing our humble suggestions.
Insted I felt they were listening to suggestions that made the program more and more capable but less user friendly.
As sad as it is that Sonar is no more but sometimes one need a kick in the behind to move on and stop hoping for something that never will happen.
I like Mixcraft and hope for the developers to keep making it more and more user friendly.

I sometimes got the feeling that Cakewalk's hands were tied due to issues with old, legacy code and/or old library dependencies. For instance, I always asked for them to enable support for back/forward mouse navigation buttons in the browser (they're usually on the side of the mouse and let you navigate back and forward in internet browsers and Windows Explorer with your thumb). These buttons are commonplace now and many rely on them - so much easier than clicking on navigation buttons onscreen. So it seemed like a no-brainer to support them, and at first glance it seems like a very easy fix. But they never did, which suggests to me that the code library that they use in the browser was very old and did not support these buttons. They weren't common 15-20 years ago, but they have been for at least 10 years. It gives you a clue as to just how old some of the code in Sonar must have been. 

The first update that breaks my SONAR, I will roll it back, turn off updates, then take it offline.  It's a secondary machine but needs Internet access for certain things, but only periodically.  Just go online long enough to do what needs to be done, then off again. I can live with that.

I see the point made that Sonar 6 is not the same as what we have now, but myself because I have so many versions I expect at least X3e which uses the old style activation will work for a long time yet. 

sharke

batsbrew

sharke
To those arguing that people have used old versions of Sonar for years, and that Windows updates never broke them:
 

 
CASE IN POINT:
 
i took my DAW off line, the day i got it dialed in.
 
8 years later, what do i care what windows does?
 
it became completely irrelevant.

Well, that's great if you can keep your computer offline. Most can't. 

i think most should.
 
you buy a PC and dedicate it as a DAW, with a good virus protection that allows off-line updates to be downloaded.
or simply, download stuff on your CONNECTED computer and let that do all the brickwalling.
 
you do all of your in/out of the machine via thumbdrives or dvd or cd, 
it's that simple.
you NEVER
 
NEVER
 
 
have to worry about some stupid internet or windows issue messing up your working system.
 
to me, that's the only serious way to have a daw.
 
i do tons of collabs,
it's never been an issue.
 
if i buy 3rd party software, i simply download it on the house machine, get any authorization info i need,
and boom, done.
 
to me, it's such an obvious choice.
 
that's why i haven't had a failure with my DAW (knock on wood) in 8 years.
 
i do max my machine out now and then, and bring it to it's knees, and it will give up the ghost then...
but would do you expect with only 2 gig of ram.
LOL

as a side note,
i think i'll put a wireless network card in my next build, 
or even a usb version,
and do updates that i want, and then YANK that thing out when i'm done.
 
LOL... best of both worlds.
 

After all the talk of Studio 1, I downloaded S1 Prime (the free version) because I simply cannot make a purchase for the next while.  ....Prime doesn't provide for 3rd party VSTs and plugins. 

CakewalkCompany


Cakewalk, Inc. was a music production software company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was best known product is their professional-level digital audio workstation software, SONAR. SONAR integrates multi-track recordin… 
Cakewalk, Inc. was a music production software company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was best known product is their professional-level digital audio workstation software, SONAR. SONAR integrates multi-track recording and editing of digital audio and MIDI. The company also offers a full range of music software products, including Pyro Audio Creator—a digital music management program, and Dimension Pro—a virtual instrument.
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Founded: 1987

Ceased operation: 17 Nov 2017

Headquarters: Boston, MA

Parent organisation: Gibson
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I think they threw in the Towel themselves!

'Who's throwing in the towel?'...in the immortal words of Winston Churchill...'We shall fight them on the beaches' :). On saying that, I'm making preparations for the day Sonar doesn't want to play nicely, whether that is tomorrow or in ten years. Funnily enough, I'm leaning towards Reaper, only because it is the only DAW that understands audio fidelity or 64bitFp, no other DAW seems to export or record at 64bitFp. You can also ramp up the resample quality, so it's a no brainer. This is even though, Reaper looks like a child's toy. I will also get Studio One as well...and hope that Presonus get on board with audio fidelity. On saying all that, I will stick with Sonar till it breaks. Sonar X1, X2 and X3 still works on my machine...and in the past so has 8.5 and 6 :). Yes, I've spent a lot of money on Cakewalk over the years, and no I'm not bitter. Software is ethereal, and until we can figure out how to store ethereal technology forever, then this day was always coming...and in reality, the five thousand plus I've spent on Sonar and Cakewalk over a 15 year period is small change in comparison to building Electric Ladyland or Abbey Road :)