Because some of us just can't afford to find the bugs as we make a living doing this.
 
Sincerely, X1 user :O)

What bugs?

I'm having a contra X1 experience if I can call it that.

Nothing going wrong in X2 apart from a few little idiosyncracies.

when X1 was released I was  an early adopter as usualbut got no use out of the program till X1C was released. It was a crash fest like no other I'd ever experienced. My opinion of Cakewalk had got so low that I spent quite a long time back on 8.5.3 and exploring other DAWs. One member here took such exception to my constant complaints/whinging that he labeled me a pest.

To this day I am no longer an exclusive SONAR user. Haivng retired on the last year I'm not under the pressure I had when X1 was released so it doesn't matter if I waste a day mucking around but as it's turned out X2 has been a pleasant surprise all round.

I'm particularly impressed by Bill and Noel's presence on the forum and the open acknowledgement of a few glaring bugs that have slipped through. this is a degree of transparency I've not seen from Cakewalk before. A good move and I applaud the efforts being made to work closer with the user base.

It seems as the hours and days pass more and more users are coming out with problems. Some will be bugs and some not understanding new features or not liking a particular change from X1.

I for one am revelling in sytsem stability on the same laptop that was labelled as unsuitable when X1 came out as it must be the cause of all my problems. Nearly 2 years later, I'm having the last laugh.

All the best LJB

LJB


Because some of us just can't afford to find the bugs as we make a living doing this.
 
Sincerely, X1 user :O)

You're welcome :^)


Seriously though, I can't blame the professionals for hanging back for the patches to come out. I use professional design software in my work place and we never upgrade to the latest version, not even eventually. We are always at least one revision behind.

Well, I wish you guys well and hope it's is an easy ride. I'll not upgrade until the general concensus looks to be one of joy and merriment. And even then I'll clone all my drives. Last time I spent 3 days rebuilding my OS after X1E came out :O)

While I completely understand the need for prudence when you are running a commercial studio with the clock ticking and paying clients, I think sometimes people tend to be overly paranoid about the potential for problems with software releases.   

Generally speaking I think you run a greater risk of system instability when doing a Windows update than with installing a new version of SONAR. The cross dependencies when you install a new version are completely minimal and if anything, 99% of the time, installing a new version can make the old version run better since the shared components can contain bug fixes. If you do use backup software you could save a snapshot and restore in a few minutes if you really needed to but that is not even necessary. The only things that are common between X2 and X1 that are relevant are the following folders:

C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared *****
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\VstPlugins

These folders contain common components that are shared between SONAR versions including plugins. The program itself is always in an independent folder under C:\Program Files\Cakewalk and any application data lives in discrete folders under the windows "AppData" folders. 

If you want to be even safer just back up the entire C:\Program Files\Cakewalk folder and if you do ever need to get back to all the prior state in a pinch, restoring that folder will bring back all the old common stuff. You could even copy and rename the folder to keep both versions online. I frequently do this when developing if I want to test behavior in a clean old version.

I do understand that many users are not tech savvy when dealing with Windows but there really is no voodoo happening when you install a new version of SONAR. The old version itself always stays intact and the new version is installed in a brand new location, other than the common files listed above. There is one more shared thing - the VST inventory, but all you need to do is a full rescan to rebuild it again.

If you take these simple precautions there is really no need to worry about installing a new version as long as the old one is kept installed. 

Thanks Noel, I'll give it a try. But just so you know, and this is WELL documented in your support logs, one of my previous Sonar installs wrecked my entire OS and cost me three days of reinstallation. So forgive me for being paranoid - it comes from experience :O)