LJB
Thanks for the input guys. Other than features as selling points, how stable is 8.1? (which is more my reason for looking at the change). Does one still get odd pauses, a crash or two a day etc etc as with Win 7? How smooth does the system run, and how well does it manage resources? Thanks, I just saw Markyzno's reply regarding this..

There will always be people who have issues with any OS, but my experience with Win8.1 is that is very stable and smooth. In fact, there is some difference that I can't quite put my finger on except to say the Win8 feels smoother than Win7. But I never had any issues with Win7 and I'm still running it on my Video workstation - Win8.1 on my DAW.
 
As you've probably read there are issues with in-place upgrades from Vista and even Win7. I did a fresh install of Win8 then upgraded to Win8.1 and have never seen any blue/black or otherwise colored screens. 

I have 8.164 running here on two systems - desktop and laptop - both a few years old now, not super powerful by today's standards - and they both run X3P just fine, smooth and stable up to the limits of the hardware they're running on. 
 
I have never understood the bizarre intense kneejerk negative reactions to Win8, as far as I'm concerned it's a great OS, robust and user-friendly and full-featured, and has been pretty much since release. I like 8.1 a bit more because it seems a bit more refined all around but the rage about the Start button/page remains a mystery to me - not because I love the Metro interface or even use it or look at it very often, but because it really doesn't affect me at all. I use the desktop most of the time, switching if I need to search for something.
 
So in short, in my experience, it works great and W8.1 is a very enjoyable environment. My two shekels, ymmv as always... 

Musicroom maby read this : http://forums.m-audio.com...acy-firewire-driver%29

Great experience on Win8, not gone to 8.1 yet.

StarTekh
Musicroom maby read this : http://forums.m-audio.com...acy-firewire-driver%29

 
Thanks! I'll give that a try tonight!! 

After installing Sonar X3d on my Windows 8.1 x64 system I realized it wasn't as simple a setup as Windows 7 x64 was. It seems MS has decided the Win8 platform to be everything to everyone so it has EVERYTHING RUNNING. It may and will take a little more time to go through the OS itself and tame it's background functions... But once you get that taken care of and set things up right you will be surprised at how much more stable and faster Sonar seems to run under the same hardware environment on Windows 8.1.

Dont wanna start mess here .. But at 7 % of the world using W8.. perhaps people including myself fall into this category . Im not bashing MS, just the way W8 is compare to the rest of the Os's .
Read this article
http://www.zdnet.com/will-90-percent-of-users-always-hate-windows-8-7000012348/

CakeAlexS

LJB
Thanks for the input guys. Other than features as selling points, how stable is 8.1? (which is more my reason for looking at the change). Does one still get odd pauses, a crash or two a day etc etc as with Win 7? How smooth does the system run, and how well does it manage resources? Thanks, I just saw Markyzno's reply regarding this..

 
If you have stability issues with Windows 7 you probably need to look elsewhere for the cause to make your system more stable (start another thread about this I suggest). I don't get the behaviour you describe with Win7.
 
In reality there will be not much difference at all between Win 7 and Win 8.1 unless your drivers are exclusively different in Win8.1 for some reason, and that doesn't automatically mean they are better. Before you update to Win 8.1 you might try a clean install of Win 7 (format the partition first), with all the latest drivers, firmware Windows update and service patches for instance, it might feel like a new machine afterwards.

BTW I am running Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. Sonar runs great on both at my end. In my view I would not waste your money on a 3 year old machine upgrading to an OS that runs exactly the same software, money is better spent elsewhere.

I agree it needs to be a different topic but just an FYI: This is the reason I went to 8.1: One day several months ago Sonar X(n) win7x64 started freezing while trying to do anything (record, navigate, even close the program). CW said it could be the audio driver. Tried different drivers, then cards, clean install, etc... nothing would fix it. Broke. Spent weeks cleaning and installing everything over and over, building system images with varying drivers etc just to troubleshoot the issues. Went to Win 8x64 and the same driver packages and everything works... After my many years of technical support experience I couldn't figure out what happened and a clean install of windows 7 didn't fix it.

bryn
After installing Sonar X3d on my Windows 8.1 x64 system I realized it wasn't as simple a setup as Windows 7 x64 was. It seems MS has decided the Win8 platform to be everything to everyone so it has EVERYTHING RUNNING. It may and will take a little more time to go through the OS itself and tame it's background functions... But once you get that taken care of and set things up right you will be surprised at how much more stable and faster Sonar seems to run under the same hardware environment on Windows 8.1.

 
Another article moaning about a lack of a start button in 8.0 which is returned in 8.1. There is not much difference between the metro interface with the start button and the start button with the start menu. Learn a couple of keyboard shortcuts (with the win key) and master pinning functionality in 8.1 and that's all you really need to worry about. You really don't need a start key any more but it's now there if you need it.
 
I remember exactly the same sort of babble when people were talking about Win 3.11 vs Win 95. Eventually they got it. It's just different not better or worse than Win 7.
 
What is becoming crystal clear in this thread is everybody has different experiences and conclusions. So really both OS's are similar and there really isn't much to shout about.

I'm +1 with Alex on the current state of OS.
 
I think the best system is the one that allows me to do what I want when I want.  still waiting...