Things to do before upgrade to windows 11

[KSband]

I updated my main internet computer yesterday that was not supposed to work with 11 and it went without a hitch, works fine. Now thinking of doing my better computer with Cakewalk on it, it is eligible for the upgrade. Looking for advice for things to do before upgrading. Will I have to do a new install of Cakewalk? Will it keep all the plugins where they are or would I have to save them somewhere and reinstall? 

[Terry Kelley]

I had to do nothing other than tweaking unrelated settings in Windows to my preferences.

Edited April 22 by Terry Kelley

[John Vere]

OS upgrades always give you the option to keep all files and settings or to nuke them. 
Myself before I would do this I would spend $50 on a 500 GB ( or??) SSD drive and clone your current system.

Samsung has a free app the Magician that I’ve used a few times now that works perfectly for this. 
 

[sjoens]

FWIW, Even tho Windows 11 can be installed on a noncompliant system, there are things to consider:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/installing-windows-11-on-devices-that-don-t-meet-minimum-system-requirements-0b2dc4a2-5933-4ad4-9c09-ef0a331518f1

[Promidi]

Make sure you deactivate and hardware dependent software.  Yes, I know Windows is software, but you don’t want to run the risk of software deactivating and not being able to reactivate (like software iLok stuff).

[Jeremy Oakes]

7 hours ago, Promidi said:

Make sure you deactivate and hardware dependent software.  Yes, I know Windows is software, but you don’t want to run the risk of software deactivating and not being able to reactivate (like software iLok stuff).

Complementing this post - for those NOT using iLok,

Windows changed my PC and Laptop identity/references,  so I had to re-register my "new" devices with such VST's providers as Toontrack, XLN, Izotope  .........

J

[msmcleod]

My recommendations:

• Make sure Windows is completely up to date with updates.
• Run sfc /scannow within PowerShell and ensure there are no system inconsistencies. If it tells you there are and they can't be repaired, use DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, then run sfc /scannow again.
• At the very least, make a backup of your existing system drive,  but if possible clone the drive to a new one (here's your chance to get a bigger SSD!), and swap the drives you you're now using the new one.  Make sure it's a deep-clone as you want the partition id's to be identical.  Clonezilla (which is free) can do this.
• Download/install Belarc Advisor, and print out a report.  This will tell you what software you have installed, and in at least half of them, what your licence key is.  
• Do an inventory of your applications and VST's, and make sure you've got the license keys handy.  This is where iLok is awesome, because there's nothing to do for them - it'll just work.
• For applications/plugins that will only authorize on a certain number of computers, unauthorize them now - especially ones that don't let you "manage" your authorizations online (e.g. Band in a Box, Magix products).  Those that do (e.g. XLN Audio), should be fine - you can just replace the old authorization with the new one. IK Multimedia products should be unauthorized via the product manager, otherwise you run the risk of running out of authorizations.
• If you've got space on a portable drive, do another backup.
• Perform the upgrade

If you get crashes/errors during the upgrade, check your drivers.  I find DriverView from www.nirsoft.net useful for this.  It'll list all of your drivers so you can check them.  You can then go into Computer Management within Windows to uninstall any old ones you don't use any more.  For problem drivers that won't go away, use DriverView to identify the .sys file, and rename it to .old.   One such driver was Native Instrument's file system driver, which was used in Windows 7 for making their install .iso files look like a fake cd... this wasn't needed for Windows 10 and above, but caused issues upgrading.

Finally, if you do need to try the upgrade again, restore your backup before you upgrade again.  This will ensure you're starting from a pre-upgrade system image before anything went wrong.

Once everything has upgraded, go through the process of authorizing all your software/plugins again.

[KSband]

Thank you for the detailed reply @msmcleod ! I'm not super techy so pulling all that off would be a big assignment so I have some googling to do.

[Terry Kelley]

Naw, just Hail Mary it and take your chances. Come on! Live on the edge!

[Glenn Stanton]

i get a new OS when i get a new device 🙂 although proper backups are important, if my OS craps outs, since i've got the installation files and the content backed up, i can format my OS drive and reinstall the OS fresh, remove all the crud they bundle, then reinstall. takes me about 2 days to fully recover (mainly loading takes times) but then my system is as clean as it's ever going to be. my configurations, contents, licenses etc are all saved separately and fully re-installable. i may have to go to some sites to deactivate things so my licenses are still reusable from a count perspective, but i do that before the update.

[Terry Kelley]

I clone the drive and upgrade the new one.