For those of you that purchased Cubase 6 with free 7 upgrade...
Did you have to install Cubase 6 (or anything else) before you could upgrade?  Or were you able to get Cubase 7 and install it directly/cleanly?
 
[edit] And does it come with the dongle?
 
Thanks!

Studious
For those of you that purchased Cubase 6 with free 7 upgrade...
Did you have to install Cubase 6 (or anything else) before you could upgrade?  Or were you able to get Cubase 7 and install it directly/cleanly?
 
[edit] And does it come with the dongle?
 
Thanks!

I does come with the dongle.
 
I just installed it off the DVDs, ran the eLicenser and the upgrade to 7 happened more or less automatically.  The reason I don't remember more clearly is that the process was so free of hassle I didn't have to think too much about what was going on.  But I definetly did install 6 first, even though I don't think I ever even launched it one time.
 
Still waiting for an answer from customer support about how I can get the Halion 5 upgrade, however.
 
 
UPDATE:
 
Just a few hours after I posted this I got an email from Steinburg giving me two links to two DVD image files.  I must download these, burn DVDs and install from those.  I can hardly be the only W7 user requiring this approach, so I can't fathom why the on-line upgrade instructions didn't just say this in the first place.  Steinberg customer support must be getting a flood of similar requests like mine.
 
Don't interpret this as ****ing.  "Free" is pretty hard to complain about.

Studious
For those of you that purchased Cubase 6 with free 7 upgrade...
Did you have to install Cubase 6 (or anything else) before you could upgrade?  Or were you able to get Cubase 7 and install it directly/cleanly?
 
[edit] And does it come with the dongle?
 
Thanks!
 

Mine came with the dongle, and HALion 4 complete, plus 2 more trial version disks. Some manuals as well.
 
IIRC, I was about to do the Cubase 6 disk, but at the last minute I decided to just download 7.0.0, 7.0.2 & then 7.0.5 altogether and it all worked fine.
 
I don't remember if I bothered with 7.0.0 and just went straight with 7.0.2 or not, and then the 7.0.5 update right away.
 
I did have to have my e-license dongle registered first though, which was easy enough.
 
All of it was done from an on-line computer in the house, without ever putting my DAW rig on-line whatsoever.  
 
Some claim this isn't possible without having your DAW rig on-line, but I did it.
 
Perhaps things have changed recently.
 
I can't believe the incredible timing for all this, as HALion 4 alone is $350.00 and was bundled with Q7 for the measly total of $370.00 vs. as much as $499.00 elsewhere.
 
Now HALion 5 is out adding 8 new instruments, among other fine things.
 
A free upgrade - YAY!!! And another $99.00 saved!
 
Again - great timing!  
 
 

dmbaer
Still waiting for an answer from customer support about how I can get the Halion 5 upgrade, however.

Did you look on their site?
 
I saw some instructions there. Did you give that way a try at all?
 
I'm gonna try it in the next hour or 2 here, and let you know how it went either way.

@dmbaer -
Ok, I went for this, and it seems all too easy. Done in less than 10 minutes, not including the actual download that is happening now on another computer.
 
Step #1 - Sign in, go to your registrations in 'My Steinberg' and take note of your elicenser number. Mine was 7 numerical digits, then a space, then a mix of another batch of numbers and letters.
[Write it down if you can't copy & paste it. Mine had my name too close to it to copy, so I just wrote it down.]
 
Step #2
Go to top of page - 4th header over - [mid page above picture that shows headset, coffee mug, pen, booklet & keyboard] = Support> Downloads> Current Downloads> HALion 5.
 
Step #3
Once the page loads, click on 'Grace Period' just under the picture - [3rd heading closer to the left].
 
Step #4
Look for small entry window that says, "Enter you elicenser number to see if you qualify for free upgrade".
 
Step #5
Enter the elicenser number you took note of above in Step #1. [I typed mine in manually - don't forget the 'space'.]
 
If all is good, it should take you to a download option page of both Mac and PC installers. [.exe]
 
Step #6 
Click your download & you're done.
 
EDIT: See post below about this step regarding updating the licenses.
**I didn't even have to plug in my elicenser, even though it looked like that would be required as per the instructs.**
 
I should also mention that I did this on a different computer than my DAW rig, which stays offline.
 
Should be no problem to transfer & install the upgrade - everything else went fine last month.
 
Going to try it right now.
 
Cheers!
 
HTH

One cool thing about Steinberg is that they allow you to resell their products without transfer fees. The elicenser thing is quite nifty actually.

Ok, so it installed just fine in just a few minutes, however we do have to update the elicenser to hold the the new licenses for HALion 5 & HALSonic 5, which both got installed.
 
You should have the elicenser plugged in when installing, so you may want to update it first, as opposed to my earlier post about not having to plug it in.
 
The install process does look for it, so might as well just do that first.
 
[This matches the instructs that I read yesterday.]
 
Otherwise, that should be it!
 
HTH

jimusic
Ok, so it installed just fine in just a few minutes, however we do have to update the elicenser to hold the the new licenses for HALion 5 & HALSonic 5, which both got installed.
 
You should have the elicenser plugged in when installing, so you may want to update it first, as opposed to my earlier post about not having to plug it in.
 
The install process does look for it, so might as well just do that first.
 
[This matches the instructs that I read yesterday.]
 
Otherwise, that should be it!
 
HTH

Thanks for the pointers, jimusic, and thanks also for the PMs.  The first DVD image is downloading as I'm writing this.  Their servers or my ISP seems to be slow ... looks to be a seven hour download for just the first DVD.  But going forward nevertheless.  Thanks again.
 
 

dmbaer
Thanks for the pointers, jimusic, and thanks also for the PMs.  The first DVD image is downloading as I'm writing this.  Their servers or my ISP seems to be slow ... looks to be a seven hour download for just the first DVD.  But going forward nevertheless.  Thanks again.
 

 
Hey - your welcome - thanks for letting me know about HAL 5 update.
 
So does this mean that you did not get the 2 disks for HAL 4 included with your Cubase 6/7 purchase?
 
Mine came with those 2 plus 2 trial version disks, plus Cubase 6 plus Cubase 6 Elements.
 
Sounds like you didn't, hence the long downloads.
 
Otherwise, like I said the whole process took only a few minutes for me & in less than an hour I was up and running with HAL 5 installed, open and licensed.
 

jimusic
So does this mean that you did not get the 2 disks for HAL 4 included with your Cubase 6/7 purchase?
 
Mine came with those 2 plus 2 trial version disks, plus Cubase 6 plus Cubase 6 Elements.
 
Otherwise, like I said the whole process took only a few minutes for me & in less than an hour I was up and running with HAL 5 installed, open and licensed.
 

My initial purchase did come with the two H4 DVDs.  I suspect their tech support gave me "the hard way" to upgrade.  It took ten hours to download two DVD images and then it turns out they require double density DVDs, which I don't have on hand.  Sounds like there's also an upgrade install file, which is not what I ended up with.
 
I think I'll try your way!
 
UPDATE:
 
Your directions were dead on correct (ever considered writing software documentation?  ).  Now I'm fighting the Steinberg server.  The download craps out about 13 minutes into the ~20 minute process.  Trying again for the sixth time.  However, at least I know how to get the upgrade if the server starts working properly.  Thank you a bunch, jimusic!