kennywtelejazz
Microsoft can do and say what ever they want to say ..I don't really care ...
 
I bought a Win 8 64bit machine for one reason alone I wanted to upgrade to SONAR X3 PE….no other reason 
 
 as far as me letting go of XP for good over here , FUGETABOUTIT 
 
when I'm not using SONAR in Win 8 or XP , I'm on my Mac …..
 
I really do keep it that simple  
Kenny

Kenny, may I bestow "my favorite post of the week" honor upon you on a Monday.
 
I'm 52, don't have a smart phone and I have one computer on 8.1.  My elderly, elderly spouse has a laptop on frikkin' Vista (which he won't let me change) and a desktop on 7 that he hates (huh???).
 
I think you should give me your Mac and both our lives will be much simpler. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I have nothing to say....
 
 

 
Other than....
... they are all just computers ... 

Cactus Music
Easy solution is keep an old beater P4 running and use it when needed 

My solution, rather than keeping an old computer around taking up space, was to create an XP partition on my DAW. I can boot to it whenever I need an XP-supported program, and as an added benefit I can access any of the files I might need on the XP partition while using the Win8 DAW partition.

Ruben

Cactus Music
Easy solution is keep an old beater P4 running and use it when needed 

My solution, rather than keeping an old computer around taking up space, was to create an XP partition on my DAW. I can boot to it whenever I need an XP-supported program, and as an added benefit I can access any of the files I might need on the XP partition while using the Win8 DAW partition.

Better yet, you could probably run Windows XP in a Windows Virtual PC as a guest Virtual PC on your Windows 8 PC...
 
http://www.microsoft.com/...d/details.aspx?id=3702
 
Correction: In Windows 8, you now can enable Hyper-V which replaces Windows Virtual PC, however this does not support Windows XP Mode, however if you are running Windows 7, you should still be able to run Windows Virtual PC and host a Windows XP guest...
 
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows-8/hyper-v-run-virtual-machines
 
 

But can you access and transfer files, like VSTs, between the host OS and the virtual engine?

Ruben
But can you access and transfer files, like VSTs, between the host OS and the virtual engine?

I haven't tried it, however if you can create a share on your Hosting PC so that the Guest PC can access then you should be able to scan the VST folders - though nothing stops you from installing the VSTs in your guest XP Machine...

Here is a good blog - haven't tried it out yet, though I do have an old version of CorelDraw which does run some what "ok" in windows 7 compatibility mode under windows 8.1, a bit buggy - so I might give this a go so I can run it in a virtual PC.. 
 
http://blog.zeltser.com/post/67023415049/how-to-get-a-windows-xp-mode-virtual-machine-on-windows
 

I should have been more clear,the "beater" is a laptop... I'm typing on it right now.. I use it for the internet. I also use it as a back up live playback machine for my solo gigs. I'm 300 Kilometers from home today. 
I also have a couple of very small workstation IBM think something P4's that are the size of a old school CD player.  There is no monitor and they will just sit there unplugged until a situation arises where I need one. My wife's Dentist office just upgraded so they were tossing them out.  The new workstations are the size of a ATA DVD drive. Same thing at the hospital where I work. IT said they are scappinh 12,000 XP P4 computers and installing these new W7's. They are so small the common call he gets is staff can't find them to re-boot!   

lol @Cactus Music

JimmyBoy

Ruben

Cactus Music
Easy solution is keep an old beater P4 running and use it when needed 

My solution, rather than keeping an old computer around taking up space, was to create an XP partition on my DAW. I can boot to it whenever I need an XP-supported program, and as an added benefit I can access any of the files I might need on the XP partition while using the Win8 DAW partition.

Better yet, you could probably run Windows XP in a Windows Virtual PC as a guest Virtual PC on your Windows 8 PC...
 
http://www.microsoft.com/...d/details.aspx?id=3702
 
Correction: In Windows 8, you now can enable Hyper-V which replaces Windows Virtual PC, however this does not support Windows XP Mode, however if you are running Windows 7, you should still be able to run Windows Virtual PC and host a Windows XP guest...
 
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows-8/hyper-v-run-virtual-machines
 
 

Hyper-V not great performance from my experience. You wouldn't want to run Sonar on it.
XP dual boot better idea. Swings and roundabouts though as virtualization is better at sandboxing XP which will soon be prone to zero day vulnerabilities.