I agree it was weird to see so many duplicate names for NI stuff.

It doesn't display UAD 6.4 64bit mono plugins right. I have both stereo and mono versions installed and now they are both listed as duplicates in the plugin manager, although the first one in the list is the mono version as viewed in the plugin properties section. The "(m)" part of the plugin name is now dropped. Before the X2a patch, they displayed correctly.

BTW, I did reset and rescan as suggested.

I did the same thing - changed the friendly name. Re-scan keeps the changed names.

I am not finding this to be the case. All my customized names are lost on re-scan - at least the ones not in saved in a layout.


I am beginning to sympathize with the OP's concern. 

I changed the names in the Registered Plugins (middle section in the Plug In Mgr).

New names still fine in my custom layout - checked: different projects, 64 & 32 bit X2, reboot PC. 


In the Browser, delete the old-named plugin, move in the newly named one & save.  

Scanned my plugins and got results that I didn't expect.  I'm getting VSTi Folders in Audio drop down menus.  I'm also getting 32 bit versions of plugins showing up when only the 64 bit versions should appear.  This is in the browser and not the old Add FX menus.

You have a few formatting choices here for the VST name, which are controllable via a new ini setting.

Add a new variable  VSTPlugInNameFormat via Edit | Preferences | Initialization file. 
You can set the value to either 0, 1, 2, 3.

0 - Format 0:  Vst supplied name which is the new default
1 - Format 1:  DLL Name which is the old behavior
2 - Format 2:  VST Plugin Name (DLL Name)
3 - Format 3:  DLL Name (VST Plugin Name)


After you create the variable, restart SONAR and the menus should display the new naming format.

Noel this should have been in the X2a Readme file. It seems to me to be very important. 

VSTPlugInNameFormat

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk
]

You have a few formatting choices here for the VST name, which are controllable via a new ini setting.

Add a new variable  VSTPlugInNameFormat via Edit | Preferences | Initialization file. 
You can set the value to either 0, 1, 2, 3.

0 - Format 0:  Vst supplied name which is the new default
1 - Format 1:  DLL Name which is the old behavior
2 - Format 2:  VST Plugin Name (DLL Name)
3 - Format 3:  DLL Name (VST Plugin Name)


After you create the variable, restart SONAR and the menus should display the new naming format.

Great! I chose option 3 for now.
I like the mini status bar in the plug-in browser.


I think NI must use the small vsts as wrappers that call the major vsts. So they all have the same VST name. Something like how savihost works.

I can't run X2a. It seemed to go well but as soon as I started working with the browser troubles began. I was seeing nothing under audio effects, in fact it displayed instruments instead. This was after the rescan. My graphics seemed to become corrupted at that point and I was seeing some sort of code in the browser and the mess crashed. Cake should have received a dump because the problem reporter still works.

I've never had a Sonar product do this so I did a system restore and will repeat the D/L

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk
]

You have a few formatting choices here for the VST name, which are controllable via a new ini setting.

Add a new variable  VSTPlugInNameFormat via Edit | Preferences | Initialization file. 
You can set the value to either 0, 1, 2, 3.

0 - Format 0:  Vst supplied name which is the new default
1 - Format 1:  DLL Name which is the old behavior
2 - Format 2:  VST Plugin Name (DLL Name)
3 - Format 3:  DLL Name (VST Plugin Name)


After you create the variable, restart SONAR and the menus should display the new naming format.

It doesn't work here on UAD or NI plugs. I typed the new variable exactly as written and tried all the options...