dappa1
Some seem to say one day sonar will stop working. How?
1. you open up Sonar and some one has stolen all the plug ins?
2. You lose all your songs?
3. Wouldn't it be like a modern day Atari. You still can use it but it's dated?
I really like to know how it can just stop working? Windows 10 is the final one!
Sonar can stop working many ways. Most of which are unlikely. But people who make their living as studio producers / audio engineers / musicians cannot take the risk of their livelihood going on hold because something unlikely still happened.
The most likely way, and the way that the remaining staff are working, among many other closing up shop duties, to make sure that when the authentication servers eventually go offline (I have no crystal ball to say that is six months or six years or six decades from now - or some other duration) that those still using Sonar will still have use of the software. If for some reason the servers go offline without this fix then the next time Windows updates and you need to reauthorize Sonar, you'll be stuck with a brick instead of a DAW. You may not have noticed Command Center reauthorizing your SONAR package after the most recent huge Windows 10 update because it just did it when you checked for new features or fix packs for SONAR in the 2017-10 release. You could always try turning off Windows 10 updates. Of course, maybe it wasn't doing that (losing authorization after a Windows Update) - I had "Owned" already on my license of SONAR and never saw that happening. Some folks have reported it and I have to take their word for it.
Another of the unlikely ways that SONAR can fail is if something in a Windows 10 update changes a key API that an important, yet older, portion of the application uses to access Windows Operating System functions (like drawing a window for instance, or accessing a MIDI port). I don't remember which Run Time Library SONAR uses - perhaps the 2013 Run Time Library. It is remotely possible that Windows 10 will at some point discontinue support of the 2013 RTL (or whichever one is used). The further into the future we look, the more likely that gets. Windows just collaborated with Intel to certify all new CPUs from Intel will only work with Windows 10 moving forward. At some point Libraries that were intended for Windows 7 (perhaps in year 2020) will be "End Of Life."
This is not to say everyone will not be able to use SONAR after that. It depends on their Computers and Operating systems. Windows XP still runs - but if you try to install it, it will provide plenty of errors about being end of life (and probably won't let you register / authorize it). But people that work in Music Studio's need to guarantee they can finish the projects they are working on for their clients, some of which might be multi-year efforts, and so they cannot afford to wait for Cakewalk SONAR to fail and are leading the charge to switch to a new DAW.
As a Hobbyist user, I can afford to use SONAR right up until the day it fails for the final time. I would normally probably have upgraded to the next version of SONAR during that time, and the next and the next if it is long enough. I've been using a Cakewalk MIDI package since 1990, and a full DAW version since about 2000. I had expected to continue using Cakewalk, indefinitely - and might just yet.
As for Windows 10 being the final version of Windows - look at their time line for end of support - Windows 10 is scheduled for end of support in 2025. Of course that doesn't mean there won't be Windows after 2025, but just a certain subset of Windows will no longer be supported. Perhaps they'll do like Apple and Name all versions of Windows with an X (Roman Numeral 10, after all) and start giving them version names. So in 2025 they'll release Windows X Winter Wonderland or some other crazy thing (can't use mountain names, Apple does that... LOL).