From what I remember Sound Blaster has always been a horrible audio device for Sonar. You will need a good audio card if you ever hope to have good sound. I have Komplete Audio 6 which has done quite well for me. 

I'm spit-balling, but I wonder if you can disable the Recording and Playback devices in Win and then open SPlat.  I think you'll get a warning message about there being no audio device, don't know if it will crash or not.
 
The pros here will give you some better suggestions I'm sure:)

From the documentation.  It might help you.
 
http://www.cakewalk.com/D...help=Beginners.17.html

Hi Scott and other contributors to this post:
Thanks for your help. I tried disabling the recording and playback devices, but that made no difference. I'm aware that SoundBlaster is no one's choice for a professional soundcard, but that's not the issue here, as far as I can tell. I'm still waiting to be contacted by Tech Service. Hope I don't have to wait forever!!!
 
Regards

Try renaming (not deleting) the aud.ini file and allow SONAR to generate a new one: http://forum.cakewalk.com/How-do-I-resetdelete-AUDINI-m2012466.aspx 
 
Or... Try holding Ctrl+Shift while starting SONAR - that will do a "hard reset" of personalization/preferences.

Hi Stevec,
 
Thanks for the advice. I don't know were to find the aud.ini file; it's not coming up in my SonarPlatinum program file.
 
I tried opening Sonar with Ctrl+Shift held down, but got the same "Stopped working" message as before. Still no word from Tech Support.
Reynold

booksmusic
I don't know were to find the aud.ini file

C:\Users\Your Name\AppData\Roaming\Cakewalk\SONAR Platinum\AUD.Ini
 
Make a back up just incase something goes array, then again im not sure what could be worse at this point.
put that back up in a documents folder, then delete AUD.Ini. restart sonar, it will automatically produce a new one.

Hi Chuck,
Thanks for the help. I tried a rename of the AUD.Ini file and deleting it, but I'm still getting the same result.
Regards,
Reynold

While I have not read all of the responses (time constraints) have you tried doing a system restore to the state your PC was before last Saturday.  This will only restore system settings but your data will be intact. If this does not work then you can restore to any other time (including the state you were before you sis the system restore)

I am assuming that you have gone to the manufacturers websites for all your hardware and downloaded and installed the latest drivers. (Don't use Microsoft Windows update for this)

If none of these work, then I think you might be looking at a hardware problem somewhere.... 

your running low on options so this is what I would do.
 
Hold down the CTRL key and start sonar (use the icon on the desktop) Not shift + Control.
just simply Control.
hold it down while double clicking the sonar icon on your desktop.
to be honest ive never heard of holding down CTRL+SHIFT at the same time, maybe steve knows something I don't but I don't think so.
so hold down control and try to strat sonar.
if this doesn't work, move to plan B:
 
If your program will no longer launch, you may be able to resolve the problem by forcing it to re-write some settings behind the scenes. To do so, follow these steps:
1.               
Hold down the Windows key on your computer keyboard, then press the R key to open the Run prompt.

2.               
Type in the following: %appdata%\cakewalk

3.               
Click OK. This opens the Cakewalk content folder in Windows Explorer.

4.               
Right-click the SONAR folder and select Rename on the pop-up menu.

5.               
Change the folder's name by adding the word “backup” to the end of it. For example: “SONAR Platinum backup”.

6.               
Close Windows Explorer and restart SONAR.

7.               
When prompted with the message “SONAR will now personalize your user settings”, click OK.