Often I want to open a project nut don't intend to use all the instruments in it. Maybe I just want to copy a passge of Midi, or look at just one track, or whatever. Is there a way to open a project but elect not to load all the instruments? My project takes a fuull 5-6 minutes to completely load. I know that I can work while instruments are loading, but it's pretty annoying to watch loading progress bar dialogs which insist on appearing smack dab in the middle of everything.

My biggest projects take about 10 seconds to load. Those might have 8 VST's and a 20 plug ins. I can see if I doubled that it might take 20 seconds. So you have 100's VST loaded?? Possibly a very slow hard drive that needs de fragging? 

If its taking 5-6 minutes to load a project I would be a bit concerned.
This may be a heads up the HD is failing or a RAM issue.
 
I tested this last week on a project with 32 tracks and almost 50+ Plug ins = 14 seconds

8 GB of RAM might not be enough for large, sample-based projects. Even instruments that stream from the hard drive need enough RAM to store at least the attacks for instant playback. 

There is a command to open projects that doesn't load any of your VST or instruments.  Except I always forget what it is since I only use it every few years.  The last time scook replied, so maybe he will pop in.  Or you could look up the standard commands.

Safe mode is activated when you open a file while the SHIFT key is pressed.
 
 
 

You'd think I could at least remember that.

no its not you AT. I couldn't remember either (as you can tell by my first post )

I have about 20 instruments loaded, but each one takes maybe 5-20 seconds. These are EastWest orchestral instruments. It's always been like that for these.
 
And now I have 12 Gb RAM, btw.
 
SHIFT key! Awesome, exactly what I needed!

If you open in safe mode, edit the project and save, what happens?
Do the original VSTs remain in the project, or is it just the opened version that is saved, or does SONAR automatically save a special "safe-version"??