This is important, as I am considering doing this. I have 7PE and Vista. I would like to upgrade to Win7, as everyone says it runs cleaner, leaner and more stable. Sonar has not said this is a good thing, yet users speak out and say go for it. How do I do a poll on this forum...as that would be easier. TNX

No poll capability on this forum. But I can imagine why.... all the Weaper vs. PreSomus vs. MAC vs. PC garble.

Unless you will eventually need W7 for SONAR X2 (which officially is no longer supported on Vista or XP 32/64) I would see no big gain to go W7. Is your system not stable?

But for all practical purposes W7 vs. Vista for SONAR 7PE should be a no brainer as far as "working". JMO.

i agree with everthing bapu said.
if you bought it though and feel like you want to install it
just run the windows 7 upgrade advisor
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20

this will run a test on your computer to make sure it passes all the system requirements,the ones you dont pass it will show in the stats after the test is done.
more often than not on older computers its the onboard vga(video) adapter.

  Thanks guys. No, my system is not stable. Or at least not to me. I get pops and clicks and dropouts. I have disabled everything and even disabled Speedstep. Yet I still have problems and LatencyMon and DPC show horrible spikes and only offer solutions for disabling everything, which, of course I have already done. Many people said that my laptop does not support 64 Bit and that I am not really benefiting from 64 Bit anyway, so I should just do a new install with a 32 Bit OS. I agree, but , many have said, if you are going to do this you might just want to use Win7 as it runs cleaner, or it has MUCH less crap running in the background and is totally capable of running Sonar 7PE without problems, as Win7 is just a better version and more stable version of Vista. As I write this I am thinking to myself...I should disconnect the Motu 8Pre. I wonder if this is creating a problem. It is the only thing I have not tried, and funnier things have happened. So what if any risks do I run. If it does not work then I do a clean install of Vista 32 Bit and hope for the best. Worst case, I have to buy a laptop made for home recording studios. A desktop would just be a pain in the ass to move from location to location.

TremoJem


  This is important, as I am considering doing this. I have 7PE and Vista. I would like to upgrade to Win7, as everyone says it runs cleaner, leaner and more stable. Sonar has not said this is a good thing, yet users speak out and say go for it. How do I do a poll on this forum...as that would be easier. TNX

Windows 7 runs better then VISTA and has other technologies not found in VSTA or XP example dispatcher lock.
VISTA is not bad OS "per se" after the last service pack that were on 2.3GB or something were released.
   The same team that made Windows 7 OS made the same patch that update VISTA to mini version of Windows 7.
 
 
By saying all this...if you not consider update SONAR 7 or have stable system without any problems stay with VISTA. If you building a new computer go Windows 7 x64 or Windows 8 x64. The truth and end of the day, change just the OS to Windows 7 x64 will give a much better boost and experience on same computer. Don't forget to install it on a Intel SSD too.

I use Vista Ultimate with X1PE (32 bit) without any issues (desktop). I too want to get a whole new rig built (64bit) so that I can take more advantage of the RAM capabilities (I like using lots of softsynths). Other than that limitation, my system runs quite smoothly.

You could also try a dual boot (32bit & 64 bit) setup and see if there are any advantages (besides the RAM issue).

Best of luck.

The problem with changing operating systems on a laptop is that many laptops contain proprietary hardware with limited driver availability.  I tried installing XP on a Dell laptop that was originally built for Vista.  It mostly worked fine, but there were no XP drivers in existence for the graphics card.  Consequently the display settings could not be altered and I had to put up with a stretched image.  A couple of other things (e.g. built-in wireless networking) would not work with XP but this was not an issue for me at the time.  Eventually I installed Vista on a separate partition (dual-boot) and everything worked perfectly in that installion.

As an OS Vista is capable of running Sonar, at least prior to X2a. If you can't get Sonar 7 to run well suspect your issues are elsewhere. I successfully ran 8, 8.5 and even X2 on Vista home 64. If I recall correctly 8.5 was the first version tested to run on Windows 7.

I skipped Win 7 and have gone straight to Windows 8 64 Pro for my new DAW (with a little help from the classic shell program) but i would not have upgraded from Vista on the old box.

we upgraded our 2007 Vaio (Core2Duo, 3gb ram) from Vista to Win 8 under the time-limited offer (note this is not a DAW computer) and it is so much better, boots more quickly and everything runs much more smoothly. 
Now that is likely the new install wiping off a load of crap as much as the OS, but if your laptop is OK for Win 7 then go for it! just from the POV of removing a lot of registry rubbish it'll be good.
You will have to reinstall all your programmes so make sure you have those on disc/download permissions etc.

  Freddie, Kev999, Glyn, MGH, You all make good points. I am going to try to download all of the Dell drivers first. Or, in other words I am still working on this before I wipe the drive. I also got a tip from another forum about disabling USB hubs, but do not have a clue about that, so am waiting for information about what this means and how to know which ones to disable. Basically I have solved the clocking issue. I just need to get the damn thing stable. So the LatMon and DPC spikes disappear resulting in no cracks/pops or dropouts. So first, install all Dell drivers. Next research other options to disable that might contribute to latency issues.\ I will also (again) check for any updates from Windows for Vista or anything from Windows, using WinUpdatMan. Freddie, what is Intel SSD? Thanks.