I've been absent for about week due to the "Upgrade" to Windows 8...

Needless to say, it was NOT painless...

I ran the Upgrade Assistant...did what it said...and then did the upgrade...

about 90 % of the way through the upgrade it crashed and burned...
I had to do a "Refresh" which cost me all of my programs...so I had
to go back and reinstall EVERYTHING....which is very time consuming...
I had to get my Fxpansion Authorizatiions reset...as I ran out...
I had to "recover" my Waves licenses, which I forgot to send to the cloud...thank God for "recovery"

NOW...with all that said and done....

Windows 8 for the past 4 days has been ROCK SOLID...it's a new way of working...
but it seems to be a lot more stable...

I had to go back and reinstall ALL of my plugins...even the 32 bit ones..
so here's a tip...when you run a 32 bit installer...it will say "Windows prevented this program for installing" or something like 
that, BUT there is a "More Info" link under the text...select that and an option to "Install Anyways" will appear...and they
WILL install....and WORK.

Only issue I've had...I can't run IK Multimedia Stand alones....they don't recognize my Windows 8 Quad Capture driver.
If I use them in X2 they work fine...

Haven't had any crashes (yet) so seems to be very stable.

The MAJOR thing I've noticed.....In X2 the Core usage is EVEN....which is a MAJOR benefit....making X2
a whole lot more stable....

Looking forward to the X2 Win 8 Patch...if it improves on what's already a solid performance (for me)
then GREAT!!

Hoping IK gets the Win 8 Compatible programs out quickly...IK Obi?  When?  LOL

Cheers!

Thanks Larry. Nice report.  No two ways about it Win 8 is a very good OS for DAWs. 

One thing I did notice about using the 32 bit Ik plugs (instruments) in X2...

They seemed to cause a MIDI hiccup....notes just randomly drop out
from ALL midi tracks...

All my other plugs have been solid...64 or 32 bit....they've been solid.

So if you we're able to get it to upgrade , you wouldn't have to reinstall all your programs? 
 No way do I wanna do a clean install of all my programs, I would be searching for installs and serial numbers for days ..
 That whole crash and burn thing after 90% done would piss me off, thank you so much for sharing your experience, it tells me leave well enough alone. Unless there was a painless way to upgrade .. Plus my tascam fw 1884 won't work .. 

Do you have an option to 'upgrade' win 8 to a new hard disk without touching the current windows installation ?

Cheers!

John


Thanks Larry. Nice report.  No two ways about it Win 8 is a very good OS for DAWs. 

John,
I knew you were going to get the Win 8 disk from Microsoft. How long did it take to get the disk?
I have ordered mine, but I have not received the e-mail yet to confirm shipment. Plus it looks like I will have to get a new wireless adapter, even though the installer for 8 claimed I just needed to reinstal in 8. The non windows 8 drivers keep puting me into a crash and re-boot. I plan to get a windows 7 compatable adapter and that should fix things.

djjhart@aol.com


So if you we're able to get it to upgrade , you wouldn't have to reinstall all your programs? 
No way do I wanna do a clean install of all my programs, I would be searching for installs and serial numbers for days ..
That whole crash and burn thing after 90% done would piss me off, thank you so much for sharing your experience, it tells me leave well enough alone. Unless there was a painless way to upgrade .. Plus my tascam fw 1884 won't work .. 

Dj,

I'm sure experiences with the upgrade vary....but that's how mine went...
but it may be due to the fact that I left everything plugged in...which, if I had to
do it over...I wouldn't do...


Tomixornot..


I chose the "Upgrade and leave my programs in tact" option - 
there are 3 options "upgrade and with programs and personal files", "Personal Files only" and "New Install"
and I read that you CAN install to separate partition or hard drive...

Honesty...the benefits to X2 are substantial, in my opinion.  I'm not happy about all the time lost...
but that may be my own fault.

Thanks Larry! I had my finger on the Win 8 trigger a few minutes ago due to the cheap price, ran the set up assistant and didn't like what it told me. I came here to read up and I'm glad I did. I have such a well-oiled machine, I very well may be done with upgrading programs and my OS for a very long time or at least until Win 7 is no longer supported and programs won't work on it.

I did that with Win 98 and I was actually glad I waited as long as I did. I would still be on XP if I didn't buy a killer pc from Jim Roseberry. With this pc stuff and all that goes with it, it's been in my best interest to stick with something that works as I do not have the time to be down for an hour let alone days. I just ordered two of those Generac generators for my studio and my house because power failures happen around here all the time and once I'm down, I have to work 2 times as long to catch back up. So your message here is really appreciated. Glad you got just about everything working. Thanks again for saving me the torture.

-Danny

Thanks for that write-up Larry. I'm going to do the same myself soon, but I may install to a new hard drive instead of upgrading, just in case...

Danny Danzi


Thanks Larry! I had my finger on the Win 8 trigger a few minutes ago due to the cheap price, ran the set up assistant and didn't like what it told me. I came here to read up and I'm glad I did. I have such a well-oiled machine, I very well may be done with upgrading programs and my OS for a very long time or at least until Win 7 is no longer supported and programs won't work on it.

I did that with Win 98 and I was actually glad I waited as long as I did. I would still be on XP if I didn't buy a killer pc from Jim Roseberry. With this pc stuff and all that goes with it, it's been in my best interest to stick with something that works as I do not have the time to be down for an hour let alone days. I just ordered two of those Generac generators for my studio and my house because power failures happen around here all the time and once I'm down, I have to work 2 times as long to catch back up. So your message here is really appreciated. Glad you got just about everything working. Thanks again for saving me the torture.

-Danny

Danny,


In spite of my write up, I don't think that I would hesitate to upgrade...the benefits are substantial IMHO...
My problems may have been self inflicted.


First make sure that there are at least Win 7 Hardware drivers for all your hardware.
If so, then it's a pretty safe bet.
Second, unplug ALL hardware and uninstall ALL hardware drivers just to be safe.
Run the Upgrade advisor and do what it says about non-compatible programs - best to uninstall them.

Do the upgrade and then re-install the hardware drivers.  That should work.

Obviously the BEST way would be to do a fresh install and then re-install your programs...very time
consuming, but probably the best way to avoid conflicts.