rpm61
Windows 8 acts as boot manager, automatically and very well done, when I booted I had the choice of 7 or 8.

I'm using a third party boot loader (Acronis) as I don't want windows to interfere with windows. When I start Windows 7 or 8 it doesn't know that there is another copy of windows on the hard drive (that way it can't interfere with other windows installations !). Also it allows me to install lots and lots of operating systems and hide partitions that I don't need when I boot.

However I don't recommend doing this at all as it becomes with its own set of problems (which I've managed to work out how to deal with over time, not for the faint hearted).

I had a boot manager years ago when I was running a tripl boot with Win 98, XP and Linux. I don't remember the name, but it worked well. the Win 8 boot manager gave me no obvious problems but the thought occurred that maybe there was an issue that contributed here. There are pages on MS.com about dual booting 8 with 7 as it was designed to provide for that.
I finally completed my 7 install this morning, installed the only programs I use are Office and VS. I going to wait until I talk to Cakewalk to put 8 and Sonar back in, plus I have work to do. That was my reason for 2 OS, 7 for work and 8 for Sonar.
 
I took a look at Song For The Wicked, nice job, and a little scary. I really like that vibe, what is the instrument that makes that whistling sound?

Probably GRUB or LILO I'm guessing.
Old Cornish fellow played a flute whistle (from a back catalogue). Everything else on that recording is original :)
Back up the image I suggest before you go dual boot again using Acronis or something...
Cheers :)

Yes, good idea, I have HDClone, but even more of a shame is I was ready to order an external drive to bck up and an SSD to run 8 on but I was procrastinating, maybe my gut was telling me something. Thanks for your help Alex.
 
I will continue to update this thread in case any useful information surfaces.

I have a call into support today. They gave me new download links for the PC add-ons, including the Gate/Expnder which was not downloadable from my downloads page. I'm waiting to hear back.

OK this is weird - why can't Cake fix the store ?
 
They gave me new download links for the PC add-ons, including the Gate/Expnder which was not downloadable from my downloads page.
 
Moving on then....

Still no reply, day 2. I'm a pretty patient guy, but I'm getting a little disappointed, I thought CW monitored these forums also and no input here? I hope they got their test machines fired up and are working on it or something. The fact that only one post here reported thesame issue has me bugged, it was a clean W8.1 install on a new drive.

So where are you now with your rebuild?
Looking at it right now it really does seem to be your environment (or was your environment before it destroyed itself).... TBC...

Cheers..

I haven't reinstalled 8.1 on it's drive yet. I want to hear something from Cakewalk first. I have to agree that it seems to be something to do with my system, I just have a hard time with that because of the clean install, performing well for 3 weeks, etc. The fact that a really well-performing system blew up on installing the add-ons versus the fact that it appears no-one is reporting this issue doesn't add up. Well, one guy here did, and you never know who else may not be bringing it to the forum. But my call to support on Monday leaves me waiting. The rep was unsure why this could happen, and he didn't know why the updated PC add-ons links were disabled and the old ones active, or why the Gate/Expander was unavailable altogether. He emailed me new links that appear to be also for the original versions as they do not have the 1.0.1 in their names. I was told they would get back to me, he said he would likely have to speak with a few others to get an answer so I agreed. I don't think there was anything wrong with my 8 install, I do think there may be something funky about that sfc scan, after I reinstalled 7 I looked around some more and many were running it from a command prompt at startup and not from within Windows, which is what I did. I don't know, but without the time to research properly right now I would just guess that sfc should be run a certain way and I proceeded as if I was doing a chkdsk, and this may be new behavior with 8.1. Years ago I was a sys builder and had all the answers for Win 98, but things change all the time and there are many little gotchas out there.

If SFC killed something... Something was seriously wrong. Its not down to the way you ran it. SFC is pretty much like a chkdsk for missing or currupted files. Run it thousands of times on hundreds of PCs myself. First time I've heard of that happening, I've never seen SFC crash a system myself. I've seen SFC stop working which is indicative that windows needs repairing with the disk but never blow up windows.

One thing is certain the OS was in need of major repair although what the actual issue was will remain a mystery. SFC hasn't changed since Win 2000 maybe earlier.