1) I'm having trouble getting some plugins to show up after a VST scan. I've entered the path to the .dll under options but it still doesn't appear in the list. Can anyone suggest what I might be doing wrong?
 
2) How can I get unwanted plugs off my system, there doesn't appear to be an uninstall for a lot of them and I'm wary of removing them by other methods in case I defeat something that's working. I have a long list of stuff that I have no idea where it came from, probably from other programs that can handle audio, I see a lot of Microsoft codecs, etc.
 
Thanks - rev

1) Difficult to say without more info. Look in the Cakewalk Plug-in Manager and see if the missing plug-ins are in the excluded list.
 
2) If the plug-ins were not installed with a Windows style installer, manually deleting them is the only way. Even using a Windows uninstall process may not completely remove software leaving traces in the registry and sometimes even on disk. If you are uneasy about removing plug-ins, use the Cakewalk Plug-in Manager to exclude them. The plug-ins will still reside on the machine but they will not be seen or used by SONAR.

Thanks, I already checked the Manager. I think it has to be something to do with the path. I'll post back if I find the problem. 

Usually Sonar would put in its own path to the VSTs. Perhaps a re-install would solve it, but I doubt one has to go through all of that. Probably on the C:\ partition of harddrive if you installed Sonar on another partition.
Just guessing as I never had a problem with that.
And yes, others will be included that can not be used, just ignore those or perhaps remove them, but if you scan again, they probably will be included again.
 

Often it's a matter of first finding the plug in, then making sure that folder is included.
I was a little miffed when I fell for one of the Sonar plug in deals the other day. A $10 Hammond organ, the demo sounded great etc.
So I paid my money , downloaded and then installed it, It used a windows installer. Sonar couldn't find it. Took me a long time using the Search function and it turned up in the 32 bit section and in Demention Pro. ?? I thought I was getting a 64 bit stand alone, and then it's 32 bit?? Last time I fall for one of Cakewalk stores "deals"
So moral of the story is these plug ins can get scattered all over the place.
And as scook said, there are generally 2 types
The ones that get installed and the ones that you just drop a dll. into your folder.
Look on your Windows programs list first and remove any using the add or remove programs feature.
The dll. type can be deleted manualy, but as scook say's they do no harm and take up very little space. Just tell the plug in manager to remove them from the list.

re #1 in scooks post.
Please tell us:
Sonar version
OS
missing plug-ins in question
 
Are the missing plug-ins downloads? If so, have you extracted them from the zip/RAR file?
 
Are you running Sonar as Administrator?
UAC was interfering with the plug-in manager on my system until I selected Run as Admin.
The scan would appear to run normally, but the list would not update.

>The scan would appear to run normally, but the list would not update.
That could be it. I haven't been running as admin. I'll try it.
 
Ok, that didn't work but I did solve one. MIDI Quest, installs .dlls for whatever instruments you have and it was those .dlls that were giving me multiple errors saying 'Can't set directory' - because the path doesn't exist. Getting rid of MIDI Quest didn't get rid of the instrument dlls. I did that manually and all is well there.
 
The one that won't show up is Waves Maserati Acoustic Guitar. I even put it in its own folder and included that path but still no luck.

If a plugin doesn't show up after the scan, it's either because a) its internal initialization routine has failed or b) you have too many plugins. The latter only applies under SONAR 8.5 and earlier. If you're on 8.5, try moving some of the plugins you don't use into another folder that's not in the scan path. If you're on X1 or later, the missing plugins could be marked as "exclude" (easy to check) or some support files are missing (may have to re-install them).

>b) you have too many plugins.
I'm on 8.5.3. Do you know what the maximum number of plugs is?
 
I have now removed so many that a max plugins limit could not be the problem. I have also archived a lot more to the Exclude list. 
 
Do you (or does anyone else) know why some plugs have (0) next to them? For example:
Stereo Side Chain
Stereo Side Chain (0) 
 
The (0) seems to suggest that one is a duplicate but reinstalling would surely overwrite the same one? Could the (0) be referring to x86 versions of the plug?

I don't recall the exact maximum number (it may not be an exact number), I only know that I exceeded it years ago and have since routinely removed the ones I don't use. I drop them into a "Removed" folder just in case I ever want to revive them or work on an old project that used them. Note that adding a plugin to the exclusion list does not reduce the total count, just suppresses them from the context menu.
 
Take a look in all of your vst folders and see if there is more than one "stereo side chain" plugin. That the "(0)" indicates a duplicate would be my first guess, too. Could you perhaps have duplicates in your vst path, maybe more than one? Keep in mind that all nested directories are included in the scan, so you could conceivably have a forgotten folder buried in there with a bunch of plugins in it.