Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Glad its mainly sorted. I did suspect it was disk related.
However 20 seconds is still too long, unless you are loading with a custom template or project.
My system drive is only moderately fast and it takes 5-6 seconds to load SONAR X64 at max under Win8.

I'm happy waiting 20 seconds and it's working well so I'm not going to try to trim the loading time.

Do you suggest that I remove/disable vst2 versions of plugs that I have in vst3?

I would leave the VST2 versions in place for now. There are setting in Preferences > File > VST Settings to assist in VST3 migration.

scook
I would leave the VST2 versions in place for now. There are setting in Preferences > File > VST Settings to assist in VST3 migration.

Yes, I'm aware of that, just trying to pare down the number of duplicates that actually exist in my system that I have 32 and 64 bit versions of vst2 and 64 bit version of vst3's.

That raises a different issue, mixing 32bit and 64bit plug-ins. In my case, 64bit SONAR only scans the 64bit plug-ins and a few 32bit plug-ins where no 64bit version exists. 32bit software does not see the 64bit plug-in paths at all.

scook
That raises a different issue, mixing 32bit and 64bit plug-ins. In my case, 64bit SONAR only scans the 64bit plug-ins and a few 32bit plug-ins where no 64bit version exists. 32bit software does not see the 64bit plug-in paths at all.

I have Sonar X3d x64 set to scan both my x86 and x64 vst2 plugin folders because I do use some plugins including free amp sims that are not x64.

Yes, that is one way to share plugins. I prefer to have the few 32bit plug-ins used by 64bit SONAR in the 64bit Cakewalk VSTplugins directory. If I had more plug-ins shared between 32bit and 64bit installations, they would have a separate directory from either Cakewalk VSTPlugns directories. This would prevent the 64bit scanner from seeing the bulk of the 32bit plug-ins.

Just in case anyone cares, disabling all vst2 plugins that I have vst3 versions of definitely sped up the loading of Sonar and projects.

Down from 2 minutes 30 seconds to 20 seconds and now down to 11 seconds!!!
Accomplished this by doing what scook suggested last.