Good morning peeps, or whatever it is where you are...

I took the plunge to "upgrade" to W8 yesterday. Quite a long winded affair, as per usual, and it's only when you come to upgrade your OS that you realise how much "stuff" you have. Oh, I should explain that I opted to get a new, larger SSD and so I've gone for a clean install, hence it is taking me ages to get back to where I was with W7.

I could do with some tips though, specifically on colours and themes. I tried one of the high contrast themes and then tweaked it to suit my requirements. When I ran Sonar I wasn't that happy with some of the contrasts between window borders and text.

Is there a particular theme that works best with Sonar. I hasten to add that I am one of the few that actually like the "out of the box" Sonar colours so I don't intend messing around with those much, if I can help it.

On the subject of licensing, everything has gone fine so far although I only managed to register Sonar, and its many add-ons, plus all of my Native Instruments stuff. I've yet to register any of my Overloud, BDF Eco, A|A|S, Fabfilter and u-he stuff, so there's a few more hoops to jump through yet.


cheers

andy

I used win 8 and it worked fine for sonar. However I went back to win 7 because you must purchase or download a program to play videos and audio files. Even if the codec is installed. As I said sonar worked fine just make sure you have all the current drivers before you begin. The Win 8 upgrade will scan and tell you what it does not like before it runs.

Hmm. I'm not a big color theme kinda guy.

I think the Windows 8 tricks I use the most are

- Windows key plus arrows to dock windows left right max and min (you can move between screens on an extended desktop with this too)

- Windows + X (followed by B) on laptops to turn on Presentation Mode (disabling screen savers)

- Windows + X (followed by M) this opens device manager for quick enabling and disabling of devices. For me I'm usually disabling the Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery

- Windows Key - type 'Scan for Malware' - it shows up under the Settings Group... When it opens, I cancel the scan, click the Settings Tab and uncheck 'Turn on Real-Time protection'. Then click Administrator group and uncheck Turn on Windows Defender. (This makes it so that Windows will not try to scan all your WAV files every time you hit stop in Sonar. You can also go to Settings Excluded Files and Locations to exclude locations specifically, but I find that just disabling it works best. I leave it enabled when I'm not making large multi- track recordings.

I have a dual boot, Win 7 and Win 8 on separate SSD's. 

For Win 8, I purchased "Start8" which puts the start button back on the desktop and all the functions in the start the same as Windows 7.  Start8 allows booting directly to the desktop and thus using Win 8 just like Win 7.  Start8 was $4.95 from http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

Although Win 7 remains my "production DAW", I installed everything in Win 8 primarily to see if it would install and work.  Everything I have installed in Win 8 native mode except the Frontier Tranzport and I had to install that in a Win 7 compatibility mode.  I've made a couple of test recordings and they worked OK.

I'm not into themes, I just use the basic default Windows scheme/colors.

There's also Classic Start Shell for free at http://www.classicshell.net/ 

+ 1 for Classicshell

Tip 1: On the desktop at the bottom left place your mouse there in that corner and right click. A quick menu should appear for accessing system and other programs. 

Tip 2:To end an app in metro drag it from the top to the bottom of the screen. It will close. 

Tip 3: You name groups of apps and desktop programs in the start screen. Use the mouse scroll wheel with ctrl to show an overview of all the apps and programs on the start screen Right click on a group and you should see at the bottom a name group icon. Click on that to name a group. 

Tip 4: In the start screen right click on an empty space. Look at the bottom towar the right. An icon will appear to show all apps. Clicking on this will give you an list of all your apps and programs in alphabetical order. 

The best one of all IMO...

is press the windows key once and let go then start typing the name of any file, any program, any setting on your computer and win 8 will find it.
I think the search functions are a little bit faster here in win 8.
maybe its just me. but I love win 8.

I love it too. LOL 

hit ctrl-alt-del to bring up the log off window, click the power button (lower right corner) to shutdown/restart.

More shortcuts are listed here:
http://windows.microsoft....board-shortcuts#1TC=t1