I'm not going anywhere in a hurry 😉

Windows 7 ends in 2020. Ya and Windows XP ended how many years ago yet I still run it on my Netbook without issues. I even go on line form time to time.. Google warns me I'm risking my life.. But worst thing could happen is I'd have to re install XP which takes less than 15 minutes when your sporting a SSD dive. I don't really care about Operating Systems as long as they boot and run the software I'm using. So I'm re building with W7 just to avoid updates. 
 
Thanks once again everyone who has checked in here, seeing lots of regulars and plenty of you folks who have had more sense than us and keep quiet :) 

I stick in SONAR for years but begin to learn Studio One, Mixcraft and Cubase, too.  I have developed SONAR Mods Duckbar for 1000s of hours and it would be such a waste of time to leave it behind with SONAR. Instead of that I decided to continue active development of Duckbar to catch up SONAR 10.2017.
 
I'm not worried about upcoming compatibility issues; if I take care about my system, SONAR will run happily just as it does now. The reason for jumping to another DAW is development of new workflow techniques and features that are worth learning.
 
My home:

 

For the next 1- 2 years I will stick with SPLAT.
Have  Cubase and a basic version of S1 which 
I will try to get familiar with.
Yesterday I tried the 3. time to instal and work with a basic version of PT.
Tried it 3 times during the last years to get PT running on my systems, but it´s imo very touchy .
regards
 
 
 
 

Honestly I hadn't been using Sonar for the last year or two.  But when I heard about Cakewalk going out of business I reinstalled it and now I really am appreciating it.  I kind of like that it's a "throwback" now. . . in a way it's cool that I won't have to learn new features and deal with changes.  The only reason I'd jump is if I have stability issues.

I hope they give us a way to pick up all the ProChannel plugins though. .  I'd love to have them all.
 

A few years before 2K, I bought Cakewalk Home studio 6, The family only PC with 2 gig hard drive didn't leave me with much time to record digital audio, but I tinkered with midi files found aplenty in those days, learn the basics. The keyboard could be used as an input device, so some simple tunes created. 
During those years computers were upping the speed and horsepower, yada yada, the second PC was bought.
The old family work horse was mine, buggered up the clean up, loaded win 98 and the PC worked fine, throw in some plug ins ... the system choked ... digital audio was limited to four tracks, sound card samples not great.
Along the years soft synths became great, and the budget PC held okay, tunes were being produced.
When the Sonar X series came to us, the new interface was snappy, but my PC hardware was limited. Built a medium tower, had audio issues for a month, 64 bit got touchy with loading plugins as revisions came about. The 64 bit on my machine was really the audio drivers, once cleared up, 64 bit was sailing fine, bye 32 bit.
A audio issue I nick named the devil's horns showed up on some wave files, okay my trusty M audio 2496, out.
By the time X3 D was installed, the features thrown in were cool, the system worked absolutely fab. My new home my studio corner was no longer in a dark basement. Add liquid cooling, quiet, SSHD big improvement.
I gotten to the point I'm comfy with Sonar, know most of the features, so I can work on producing with confidence and focus on the building of a tune. Sure once in a while the odd weirdness prompts up, basically no biggie, glitch.
When the subscription came about, I threw some version on and didn't see enough to warrant buying.
I focused on work flow, not software, but all the other things such as one man set up, room treatment, better mikes. 
When recording, it comes in spurts, this year has yielded some great tunes. So yes I'm staying with Sonar for awhile yet. My next PC will be some cube, probably bluetooth input for midi. I stayed with win7, works fine. I'm a happy user.

I'm going to learn Pro Tools now, but keep SPLAT as long as it works.

Not like I am just going to stop using it, hell I used PA9 for 2 years after "Sonar" came out.  Used 8.5 till I caved at X2, but I do think all our hopes of it remaining viable long term are very much like the couple that meets at summer camp and vow their devotion to one another and promise to write every day...

Sure, a few of us older guys (only 50 here) may ride it out till breath leaves us, especially the hobbyists, but I do operate my production business for profit and I can not allow a W10 update that creates bugs (it happens regularly to non-updated software) to derail work I am being paid to do.  Eventually a BIG change will happen OS wise even though W10 is the "last" Windows.

I spent a lot of $$ on MOTU interfaces that should have been viable for decades and now are physically still fine but stopped working with the OS 3 Windows versions ago and will not work 64 bit at all.  I fought/searched out and employed work arounds and held myself back DAW wise for a few years.  (yes no 64 bit mixbuss)  I finally had to dump that gear and move on.

Because of that, I will not JUMP ship, but will pull another ship along side, learn to sail it, and tow SPLAT along with me on the journey, using it where it benefits me without putting me in a situation I can't recover from should it suddenly sink earlier than later. 

I have to grow along with a ship (DAW product) that can move with current technology.

I'll not purposefully ignore SPLAT but I can't pledge my undying devotion either because there will come a day where it does fail to write me the promised letter, so I will hold it as a fond memory of that amazing (20+ year) summer we spent together knowing full well, we will have to move onto other loves eventually so why wait.

Oh, and as for the new ship, I am enjoying Mixcraft's design and workflow so far.  It is like Sonar's workflow meets some of the limiting factors ProTools insists on.  (Track sizes, views etc.)