What i've done is pretty straight forward and you don't have to understand computers to do it. 
 
Are any of you aware that you can have a legal copy of Sonar on more than 2 computers? I have 6 all say LEGAL and owned forever. 
I have 2 computers licenced with XLN and iLock, If I use the 3rd I have to deactivate one of them, takes only a minute. Might be because I got a second licence for XLN from owning Professional. Do other's get 2 licences? 
 
I have 2 complete 100% Daw computers set up plus I installed Splat on every thing in my house that was available, I even installed it on the Laptop I use at work. 
 
1- Main DAW  W 8.1 i5 16 GB RAM 2 x SSD, 1TB XLN, ILock   SPlat and WaveLab 7 
2- Backup DAW W10 i7 12GB RAM 2x SSD,1TB XLN, iLock  Slpat, Cubase 7 EL, Wave Lab, Mixbus4 
3- Studio Laptop W 7 8 GB RAM i5  650 GB and 500 GB ( no SSD) XLN and iLok , SPlat Aug, Home Studio,  others 
4. Old Studio laptop Sony 2008 W7 4 GB RAM SSD SPlat Feb, X3e and  8.5 
5- Wife's laptop i5 Lenovo 8B RAM W10  X3e. 
6- Office desktop i3, 8GB RAM, W10  2x SSD 2TB  SPlat bare bones,Home Studio, x3e and 8.5  
7- Old DAW mothballed but still a great computer W7 4 GB RAM  X3e, 8.5, Cubase and Wave Lab
8- Work Laptop Lenovo i5 W10  Splat bare bones install, and back up of all my files. 
9- Asus net book  has Sonar x1. 
 
Plus I have CCC download folders going all the way back stored on most of these machines plus a few external drives. I have a document with all my serial numbers also backed up to the cloud etc. 
 
So as well as Splat installed to 6 computers I have various older versions on hand plus I own Cubase 7 Elements and now Mixbus4. I don't need to worry about not having a DAW for a long time

Cactus Music
What i've done is pretty straight forward and you don't have to understand computers to do it. 
 
Are any of you aware that you can have a legal copy of Sonar on more than 2 computers? I have 6 all say LEGAL and owned forever. 
I have 2 computers licenced with XLN and iLock, If I use the 3rd I have to deactivate one of them, takes only a minute. Might be because I got a second licence for XLN from owning Professional. Do other's get 2 licences? 
 
I have 2 complete 100% Daw computers set up plus I installed Splat on every thing in my house that was available, I even installed it on the Laptop I use at work. 
 
1- Main DAW  W 8.1 i5 16 GB RAM 2 x SSD, 1TB XLN, ILock   SPlat and WaveLab 7 
2- Backup DAW W10 i7 12GB RAM 2x SSD,1TB XLN, iLock  Slpat, Cubase 7 EL, Wave Lab, Mixbus4 
3- Studio Laptop W 7 8 GB RAM i5  650 GB and 500 GB ( no SSD) XLN and iLok , SPlat Aug, others 
4. Old Studio laptop Sony 2008 W7 4 GB RAM SSD SPlat Feb, X3e and  8.5 
5- Wife's laptop i5 Lenovo 8B RAM W10  X3e. 
6- Office desktop i3, 8GB RAM, W10  2x SSD 2TB  SPlat bare bones, x3e and 8.5  
7- Old DAW mothballed but still a great computer W7 4 GB RAM  X3e, 8.5, Cubase and Wave Lab
8- Work Laptop Lenovo i5 W10  Splat bare bones install, and back up of all my files. 
 
Plus I have CCC download folders going all the way back stored on most of these machines plus a few external drives. I have a document with all my serial numbers also backed up to the cloud etc. 
 
So as well as Splat installed to 6 computers I have various older versions on hand plus I own Cubase 7 Elements and now Mixbus4. I don't need to worry about not having a DAW for a long time

Yeah exactly...You can have it on 2 computers and if you dis-enable windows updates......whats the problem????? 

Hey Mark, I noticed in your post you said this:

• I then set up a Windows Firewall rule to block SONAR and Plugin Manager from the internet.

I wasn’t aware
Can you explain this? I haven‘t known of any communication between Platinum and Cakewalk through the internet. Last year when we had that bizarre MS bug, I suspected this communication may have been going on, but no one acknowledged it. 

Quite a few plugins - notably TH3 and AD2, and IK Multimedia plugins too - contact their various websites when the plugin is loaded to check for updates and the current authorisation status.
 
Blocking SONAR and the Plugin Manager makes these plugins appear that you're working offline, which means they can't check whether your using your authorised computer or not.
 
As both TH3 and AD2 only allow 2 authorised computers, and a dual-boot unfortunately takes up both authorisations, you can use the firewall to temporarily get around this limitation.
 
What you need to do:
- startup in your "backup" boot (e.g. Win 7)
- make sure SONAR is not blocked
- make sure the current computer is in the authorised list, by removing your Win 10 computer and adding the Win 7 one.
- add and/or enable the firewall rule to block SONAR
- reboot into Win 10, then remove Win 7 from the authorised list and replace it with Win 10.
 
At this point you could optionally add a firewall in Win 10 too, but then you'd not be notified of updates etc.
 
Now when you swap between Win 7 & Win 10 you'll not have to re-authorise.
 
 

So you do get 2 authorizations of AD2. I wonder?  I should have 4 then. 2 for Professional and 2 for Platinum. 
I got 4 kits from owning both. 

I was going to use windows 10 backup software to backup my "C" drive.  Is there a reason nobody's doing this?

kzmaier
I was going to use windows 10 backup software to backup my "C" drive.  Is there a reason nobody's doing this?

 

Just backing up the data on your C drive definitely won't work, if you attempt to copy all that info to another boot drive. In order for it to be able to boot it has to be an exact copy with all the MBR and sys reserved, plus more hidden files. It may be called clone drive or drive copy or similar.
 
 It's possible the Windows backup software will do all of that, but I’d be surprised. You'd have to test it. If it were me I'd just use Macrium free. Just download it and it'll make an image file of your C drive. I use Macrium free on a Win 10 computer and Acronis on another one.
 
My boot HD is a fast SSD, but I have a 2nd HD SATA HD that’s a clone of my boot HD. I’ve always been a big dual boot fan, yet Win 10 is extremely quirky about dual boots and after banging my head against the wall trying to get it to work, decided to do it like others are doing.
 
When you want to boot to the 2nd HD, turn off your computer and disconnect your boot drive and physically connect the cables to the 2nd HD and then boot. Likely you’ll have to go to the bios setup or just choose it in the boot menu on startup. Actually I leave my 2nd HD in my computer with power connected and simply swap the data the cable.
 

Cactus Music
So you do get 2 authorizations of AD2. I wonder?  I should have 4 then. 2 for Professional and 2 for Platinum. 
I got 4 kits from owning both. 

I found once I upgraded from X3 to Platinum, my previous AD2 license was merged with my new one. I guess this was the price to pay to get all 4 kits.

msmcleod

Cactus Music
So you do get 2 authorizations of AD2. I wonder?  I should have 4 then. 2 for Professional and 2 for Platinum. 
I got 4 kits from owning both. 

I found once I upgraded from X3 to Platinum, my previous AD2 license was merged with my new one. I guess this was the price to pay to get all 4 kits.

 
OK That was what I was thinking, too bad as it would be nice to have that one extra licence for my Laptop. I plan on using it live and AD2 is just about every song now. I will just bounce to audio I guess which a lot of people seem to recommend for live playback anyhow. 
 
Another great back up and cloning tool that is free is EaseUS. 
http://www.easeus.com/?ad&gclid=CjwKCAiAvMPRBRBIEiwABuO6qVp3RMuxeHZnbtoGElSyU63_ISSZCBQd0TSsczCGxqB-ftazw72akxoCd-MQAvD_BwE
 
 
 

Crazy concept:
 
You own the software, at this point would downloading a cracked torrent of the software be unethical?
 
The whole operation assumes that CW servers will go down and you can't reinstall.