Win 8 is more bearable to me by using Classic Shell.

I am convinced that the MS developers/coders of the Win 8 UI hung out where pot became legalized when they designed the new ui for win 8.

@LJB - I concur with Alex - if your Windows 7 system is not stable with Sonar, then you have some issues that will nearly certainly continue to cause the same problems after a Win 8 or 8.1 move.
 
I would suggest you post each issue that you can identify with a complete list of your specs and settings - see mine at the bottom of this post for an example, including any steps you can list for anything that is reproducible. 
 
Is it one project, or maybe a small number of them, or is it all projects?  Do they crash, are you plagued with latency/dropouts/crackles?  Do you have 32-bit plugins present in these projects?  What exact audio interface are you using (or is it your sound chip of the computer)?  Is your Windows maintenance up to date? Etc.....
 
Bob Bone
 

I notice that you're running a PCI interface.

I don't know what motherboard you have but PCI has become problematic and is often the cause of instability. On many modern motherboards PCI buses are not properly supported and are not run natively if I can use that terminology.

If you have an option to move to a PCIe interface go for it.

On the Win 8.1 front. I'm all for it. My main studio machine is running it with no stability problems running any of several DAWs including Sonar X3d x64 along with a ton of plugins and multiple audio and video programs. If you can contend with the depth of knowledge it takes to run a DAW you shouldn't have a problem with Win 8.

gustabo
Win 8 is more bearable to me by using Classic Shell.

I am convinced that the MS developers/coders of the Win 8 UI hung out where pot became legalized when they designed the new ui for win 8.

LOL perhaps they should have!
I guess I need to buy a book to learn the new OS .oh wait maybe 2 one for 8 and one for 8.1.
 Never needed a book to understand any of my OSX updates.  I equally been using windows since 3.11 workgroup and OSx 7 for my powermac. Never till W8 came out have I been so baffeled by an OS . The community outlash on W8 has not been good . There are more complaints than any OS ever. And those are the facts im not the only inept person using W8.

robert_e_bone
@LJB - I concur with Alex - if your Windows 7 system is not stable with Sonar, then you have some issues that will nearly certainly continue to cause the same problems after a Win 8 or 8.1 move.
 
 

Thats not true, Win 7 was very unstable with my AMD card giving me a black screen of death. Win 8.1 has been stable as anything.

djjhart@aol.com

gustabo
Win 8 is more bearable to me by using Classic Shell.

I am convinced that the MS developers/coders of the Win 8 UI hung out where pot became legalized when they designed the new ui for win 8.

LOL perhaps they should have!
I guess I need to buy a book to learn the new OS .oh wait maybe 2 one for 8 and one for 8.1.
 Never needed a book to understand any of my OSX updates.  I equally been using windows since 3.11 workgroup and OSx 7 for my powermac. Never till W8 came out have I been so baffeled by an OS . The community outlash on W8 has not been good . There are more complaints than any OS ever. And those are the facts im not the only inept person using W8.

Ah I see now you think computing is supposed to be simple and easy. It is for the vast majority but there are a few of us that like to know more. Some of us don't just want to use an OS but master it. I build my own machines and like to keep up on new technology. 
 
Think of it this way when X1 came out I was one very strong supporter of it. I ran up against many that where bashing it at almost every turn. Many claimed it was a step backwards. It was a very difficult time for me yet I did promote it as best as I could. The reason was I saw the potential in the X series. I understood why CW changed Sonar. I didn't come by this view through osmosis. It required that I did a lot of reading and research. Now everyone is on board the X series train and its as if they were never in opposition to it.
 
Windows 8/8.1 is in the same phase where we have a group that make statements bashing it without having looked at with any depth or understanding of what it offers. 
 
You don't like the metro start screen, fine. But when someone says that it is clear to me they haven't understood it.  Yes Windows is not OSX and hopefully never will be. It demands a little effort from the end user.  But the end user is rewarded with a very versatile and powerful OS that can do just about anything. 
 
The notion of a power user is never applied to a Mac user and the reasons are many but the one that sticks out is that Macs are not meant for people that are unafraid of technology but rather wish to embrace it. 
 
Yes I read a lot and yes I try to learn about all the tools I use.  I don't see that as a problem.  
 
 
 
 
   

I went from a quad core 6600, 6 gig of RAM on Vista 32 bit to an i7 4770, 8 thread processor, 16 gig of RAM on Windows 8.1 which is of course 64 bit.  I made that switch at the beginning of this year.  I'm not crazy about the Windows interface but I can say X3 is running as stable as I've ever known Sonar to run since I've used it!  I wouldn't go back for sure. 

markyzno

robert_e_bone
@LJB - I concur with Alex - if your Windows 7 system is not stable with Sonar, then you have some issues that will nearly certainly continue to cause the same problems after a Win 8 or 8.1 move.
 
 

Thats not true, Win 7 was very unstable with my AMD card giving me a black screen of death. Win 8.1 has been stable as anything.

I suppose I should have made a more generalized statement, but I do believe that the percentage of unstable Windows 7 systems in the Sonar community is likely pretty small, given the infrequent posted issues related to instability with the OS.
 
I certainly don't intend to get into a debate about the issue.  I think in general terms it is a reasonable approach to identify the current issues, as best as possible, with the OP's Windows 7 system, which may well be fixable.
 
Most folks here in the forum seem to have stable Windows 7 systems, and issues that do get posted are usually with outdated maintenance, shaky drivers, 32-bit plugins or other 3rd-party plugin problems, or Fire Wire chip set problems, rather than some general instability with Windows 7.
 
That's not to say these isn't some conflict with a video card, or something like that, but again listing the issues and providing some detail could offer easy opportunity to resolve those on Windows 7.
 
To the best of my knowledge, I cannot think of a single instance where drivers for a particular device worked better in Windows 8 than they did in Windows 7 - usually the other way around.
 
In any case, I hope the OP does post their issues, so that we can collectively see if we can help get them stabilized.
 
Bob Bone
 

markyzno
Thats not true, Win 7 was very unstable with my AMD card giving me a black screen of death. Win 8.1 has been stable as anything.

No that is not true, for you. BTW black screens with Nvidia display cards are a classic issue which is frustrating and resolvable, and I notice you not only are you using NVidia but also AMD. I'm making an educated guess but the chances are when you installed Windows 8.x you also ended up using different drivers for both (or either) which worked better for you.
 
There are plenty of people running quite happily on Win7 as with Win8, and as I said I'm running both fine. Both Win7 and Win8 is using the same kernel technology, Win 7 is an extremely stable OS and so is Win 8 if configured correctly, both are reliable and mature operating systems. To say Win7 or Win8 is fundamentally unstable is a baseless assumption, if you have issues with stability it's almost certainly your hardware, drivers, maintenance, or some conflict going on in software (or a hardware failure).
 
> In any case, I hope the OP does post their issues, so that we can collectively see if we can help get them stabilized.
 
Ditto

I can't understand people who say Windows 8 is too hard to learn then give up on it. I'm still on 7 on my desktop but recently bought a Windows 8 laptop. It took me approximately one evening to get up to scratch, all I had to do was read a couple of QuickStart guides. Admittedly the Metro interface is optimized for touch. And if you are using a touch screen, it is a fantastic UI experience. I wouldn't even consider going back to the old start menu - Metro is basically a beautiful, luxurious new start menu once you get your head around it (which takes minutes). If you swipe up from the middle of the screen, you get a much larger and more detailed menu with everything in. The front screen is for live tiles, which you can customize. I'm zipping all over the place like never before. The swipes and gestures are second nature after a while. And I flit between Metro and the desktop with ease with the Windows key.

I can see, however, that some without touch screens might want to bypass Metro and install a classic start menu. I know people who use a Metro with a mouse without problems however. Even without Metro, Windows 8 is an awesome OS. I cannot understand the butthurt, then again I didn't understand the butthurt with Vista either, having used it for 2 years without a single issue. I honestly think a lot of it is meme-based - it becomes fashionable to bash a new OS, especially a Microsoft one, and doing so gives one the air of a tech-savvy pro who knows more than the average consumer.

If you have an SSD, Windows 8 boots ridiculously fast. My laptop takes about 2 seconds (seriously), and once I enter my password the whole thing is chomping at the bit without any noticeable lag. I really feel like I've joined the 21st century with this OS.