Having decided to stick with Sonar, I did the following to ensure Sonar will work for a LONG time.
 
It's taken a 2-3 days on and off to get my backup system working, but here's what I've done to get a pretty solid backup strategy.
 
First it's worth mentioning how my drives are organised:

• C: Windows 10 OS
• D: DVDR Drive
• E: DATA drive (used for large plugin/sample content - e.g. NI KOMPLETE / AIR Complete)
• F: SONG drive (used for Sonar projects)

1. Audit of my current Windows 10 system:

• Downloaded Belarc advisor, ran it and printed it off. This tells me all the applications I've got installed (but not all plugins - see next step)
• Within Sonar, went to Edit->Preferences->VST Settings and typed each of the VST search paths into notepad - saved this as allplugins.txt
• Opened a command line window, and for each of the paths did the following:
• dir "{plugindir}" /b /s > plugins.txt
  ...where {plugindir} is a vst search path (e.g. dir "c:\program files\steinberg\vstplugins" /b /s > plugins.txt )
• edited the plugins.txt in another instance of notepad, and copy/pasted it into the allplugins.txt under the appropriate path heading.
• deleted the output file ready for the next run: del plugins.txt
• Did the same for each VST search path

Having now got a list of all the plugins/plugin directories in allplugins.txt, I printed this file off.
 
2. Backing up my current Windows 10 installation:

• I downloaded the latest Clonezilla iso and burned a DVD from it. This is what I use to do full backups of disks and/or partitions.
• Got a traditional (ie not SSD) 2TB SATA disk and installed it in my PC
• Booted from clonezilla and backed up images of my Windows 10 disk & data disks to the 2TB drive
• Switched everything off & disconnected the power & SATA from the 2TB drive. That way, it just sits there in my PC ready for a restore without constantly running.

3. Creating a Windows 7 backup environment
I figured that Windows 7 updates will now be minimal and shouldn't affect the running of most software, so having everything on Windows 7 is a safe bet for making it future proof. Note that I wanted to use my existing DATA & SONG drives, so they'll be shared between Windows 10 & Windows 7. The idea here is that I should be able to swap between Windows 10 & Windows 7 and all my plugins and sonar projects will be exactly the same.
So...

• I bought a Windows 7 license key from amazon (cost around £15.00)
• Installed a new SSD drive in my PC, and installed Windows 7 on it
• Installed all the drivers (leaving the network till last),
• Installed Firefox as IE8 is practically unusable on a fresh Windows 7 install nowadays.
• Downloaded the latest version of Windows Update from Microsoft and installed it
• Ran Windows Update and waited 2-3 hours while it installed around 200 updates.
• Installed all my USB audio hardware drivers
• Ran Windows Update again.
• Downloaded and installed Adobe Flash Player (Cakewalk Command Center seems to need this)
• Went to Disk Management (Right click on My Computer, click Manage then go to Disk Management) and changed the drive letters of my other disks to match what they were in Windows 10, e.g.:
  • D: -> DVD drive
  • E: -> DATA disk
  • F: -> SONG disk
  • G: -> Windows 10 OS

At this point it occurred to me that as I wanted my DATA drive to be shared between the two OS's, I really didn't want the content on this drive to be overwritten when doing all the installs on my Windows 7 OS. So what I did was:

• Re-connected my 2TB Backup disk and renamed it to DATA
• Went to Disk Management (Right click on My Computer, click Manage then go to Disk Management) and changed the drive letter of the 2TB disk to match what my DATA drive is on my Windows 10 OS. In my case, my DATA drive is drive E: so I assigned E: within Windows 7 to point to my 2TB disk, and changed the "original" DATA drive to X:

I then proceeded to install Cakewalk:

• Installed Cakewalk Command Center and ran it, entered my username/password, then quit after it had done its initial product check.
• Copied the content of "C:\ProgramData\Cakewalk\Command Center\Downloads" from my Windows 10 disk to the same path on my Windows 7 disk - this is so it doesn't need to download all the Cakewalk installs again.
• Opened up Cakewalk Command Center and installed everything
• I then went through the printout of my allplugins.txt file and installed all my plugins, ensuring that the installation paths I chose matched the ones on the printout, and ticking them off as I went along.
• I also went through the printout of the belarc report and installed any other software I needed (e.g. 7zip, Adobe Reader etc).
• Once I'd installed all the plugins that had content going on my "E" drive, I went back into Disk Managment and:
  • Changed my 2TB drive from E: to H:
  • Changed my original DATA drive back to E:

During the course of the install, I had the dreaded "authorised computers limit issue" (i.e. Addictive Drums, TH3 etc).
To get around this:

• I removed my Windows 10 authorisation from XLN and Overloud in favour of my Windows 7 boot and got them all authorised.
• I then set up a Windows Firewall rule to block SONAR and Plugin Manager from the internet.
• Booted back up to Windows 10, removed the Windows 7 machine from XLN / Overload, and re-authorised them for my Windows 10 machine.
• Booted back up to Windows 7

The above steps mean that SPLAT on Windows 7 is now effectively running "offline" and can't check for authorisations, but it also won't check for updates on those plugins. You'll need to go through the unblock/remove machine/add machine/re-authorise/remove machine etc whenever you need to do an update.
 
Note that I'm NOT trying to subvert the anti-piracy policies here - my rationale here is that if for some reason, your Windows 10 OS stops working during a session, you can quickly switch to Windows 7 and carry on working without worrying about the authorisation headache. If you do find you have to go to Windows 7 permanently, then it really should be the Windows 7 machine that is unblocked from the firewall and has the authorisation. IMHO these authorisations should be tied to the motherboard and not to your OS installation, that way dual-boot machines would be treated for what they are, i.e. the same machine.
 
Thankfully all the plugins using iLok installed without issue :)
 
After I was happy that all the plugins were working:

• I deleted the duplicate content of my 2TB drive, so all that was left on there was my Windows 10 backups.
• I then booted up from Clonezilla and did a backup of my new Windows 7 disk.
• I shutdown the PC and disconnected the SATA & power from my 2TB drive

 
So now I have the following:

• If SPLAT stops working on Windows 10 due to an update, I can reboot to Windows 7 and just continue.
• If Windows 10 OR Windows 7 gets corrupted (or the drives die) I can simply re-connect my 2TB backup disk and restore from the backups.

Possible additional steps:

• You could remove the drive letters for the other OS's in each installation (i.e. Windows 10 can't see the Windows 7 disk and vice-versa). This *may* offer some protection if you got a virus, so it wouldn't spread to your other OS. Personally, I'm pretty careful and find the ability to copy between them more useful.
• For those with spare pocket-money, having a spare SSD with a "ready-restored" copy of your OS's might be handy.

Just a quick note on Cakewalk Command Center: The Cakewalk servers seem to be being hammered at the moment, so pick a time when they're likely to be quiet. I found that between 07:00 and 10:00 GMT (UTC) were the best times for me.
 
I hope some of you find this useful!
 
Mark.

Useful? That's a bloody brilliant post Mark, thanks very much. This is exactly what I need to do and am saving this post to my desktop right now. 
 
I'm one of those guys who's not jumping ship right now - I'm giving it 6 months at least. 

Great post, Mark! Thanks.
All the best.

This will definitely cover all your bases as long as the CW servers stay up and running.
 
And yes, it will even hold you for a time after the activation server is unplugged.... But from there, you won't be able to reinstall or move to another PC. 
 
I don't mean to sound like a doomsayer, but it's important for users to realize that there is a real possibility that the servers will go down sooner rather than later, and despite assurances, CW staffers may not be able to deliver a permanent activation code. Ultimately, it's going to be Gibson's (Henry's) call.
 
Have a backup plan, and start it now -- that's all I'm saying.

msmcleod
Having decided to stick with Sonar, I did the following to ensure Sonar will work for a LONG time.

Wow, that's the ultimate Friday's Tip of the Week! There's a lot of good info in there in addition to the backup strategy.

I can't say I have studied your post in the greatest of detail, but I've read enough to know this is way beyond me.

If this is what is required, then you have justified my early decision to realise, the world has changed, it is time to move on, and moving on to me means Studio One.

Marshall
I can't say I have studied your post in the greatest of detail, but I've read enough to know this is way beyond me.

If this is what is required, then you have justified my early decision to realise, the world has changed, it is time to move on, and moving on to me means Studio One.

He posted a lot of great info but his plan seems like the "over due it" plan.
Im simply backed up my installers. Done.
 
Good luck with Studio one though. it seems like a great DAW.
I just plan on getting my moneys worth out of Sonar. It is state of the art as of right now.
Maybe in a year or two I will change my mind but I used Pro audio 9 for 3 years with no updates.
 
We have become spoiled in recent years expecting updates 12 times a year.
Sonar is still a great DAw.
 
 

Ditto 

chuckebaby

Marshall
I can't say I have studied your post in the greatest of detail, but I've read enough to know this is way beyond me.

If this is what is required, then you have justified my early decision to realise, the world has changed, it is time to move on, and moving on to me means Studio One.

He posted a lot of great info but his plan seems like the "over due it" plan.
Im simply backed up my installers. Done.
 
Good luck with Studio one though. it seems like a great DAW.
I just plan on getting my moneys worth out of Sonar. It is state of the art as of right now.
Maybe in a year or two I will change my mind but I used Pro audio 9 for 3 years with no updates.
 
We have become spoiled in recent years expecting updates 12 times a year.
Sonar is still a great DAw.
 
 

I agree with everything you say here. Sonar is amazing, as is this forum.

Why so complicated?
In our case Windows 10, SONAR and all plugins are installed on C. (Projects are H)
Since many years we run on every DAW a backup software that creates "automatically" all week a full image-backup from "C" to a network drive (you can also use a external drive). With 10 history files, so you can go back 10 weeks and versions.
If any problem occurs, we boot the System with a backup-software-USB-Stick and play back the last featured backup.
 
If - in your case - a windows 10 update would kill SONAR, you can restore one of the last 10 backups and cut the internet to the computer. So you need a second computer for Internet, Mails ...
Our backup-software is sadly only in german available (Langmeier Backup)
 
I recommend that to everyone, making backups from you OS and projects automatically - not manuell.