MozartMan

Update. I spoke too soon because after several start ups of new Sonar Free Tier that nagging marketing pop-up box came back. Anyway, I restored image of my PC. So, no new Sonar Free Tier for me, yet, because my CbB still activates as of October 9, and my Cakewalk Sonar X1 Studio still works.

Double good news this morning. 1. My CbB is still working as of Monday morning, October 6. 2. I got rid of that pop-up screen that was coming up at the start up and was holding me hostage for 10 seconds before I could click on Free Tier button. Now I just get Quick Start pop-up window. I can live, for now, with this yellow bar in the Quick Start window and this grey bar below the menu bar

I know. That's why I made a joke about basic human rights.

Just opened free Sonar again and got greeted with pop-up like in the image in my original post. And had to wait 10 seconds until I was able to click on "Use Free Tier" button. Very nice free feature.

But this new feature in Cakewalk Sonar Free Tier - Backup/Restore Settings - it's a basic human right. Just kidding.🙂

I am late to this thread, but... I have: Windows 11 EDU Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 Syba SY-PEX30016 3 Port IEEE 1394 Firewire card And everything works great. So, Firewire is not dead, yet.

Look at my previous post.

Haha! This is exactly the card I currently have in my PC with Windows 11. Works great with Focusrite Saffire Pro 40. Here is screenshot from Device Manager.

When you search for a new Firewire card make sure it has Texas Instrument chipset. Don't buy FW card with any other chipset.

"Wrong sub forum" - Yes, I know. But I thought it would be heads up for people who are going to switch to free Sonar. For me is not a big deal because I have a way to backup and restore settings of ALL of my programs installed on my PC. And when they decide to kill both, CbB and free Sonar, I have a choice #4: 4 - Go back to Cakewalk Sonar X1 Studio. I don't make a living of writing MIDI files or recording mixed content, so Sonar X1 Studio does everything that I need.

I decided to try new Cakewalk Sonar Free Tier and installed it today. Apparently new Cakewalk Sonar has new feature - Backup/Restore Settings. Cakewalk by BandLab and my old Sonar X1 Studio, that I also have installed on my PC , don't have that. BUT. Cakewalk Sonar Free Tier does not let me to use Backup/Restore Settings feature. It pops this screen wanting me to buy membership. Also, reading that sentence below the header it looks like Cakewalk Sonar Free Tier will not be getting any upgrades. Good job (Cakewalk) guys.

About 3 weeks ago.

Well, it is October 1, 12:25 pm EDT. I just opened Cakewalk by Bandlab and it activated. I don't know how long it will last though.

You are welcome.

I use blue USB 3 port in my PC. I have Inland Performance Plus 1 TB NVMe SSD in that enclosure that I linked to. I use it as the 1st backup drive. The speed is amazing. Inland is Micro Center brand. My 2nd backup drive is 4TB WD spinner.

I use NVMe drive as backup and use this enclosure: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX/ Works great.

@Mr No Name Thanks for the article. I uninstalled that.

If you have extra PCI-e 4 slot/s you can install more M2 disks using this adapter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JCFHCVN/

@Glenn Stanton I agree. It is impossible to remove M$ big brother from Windows, but at least I was able to minimize that as much as possible with this W10Privacy tool and some other tools and manual edits of registry and group policy.

There are tools to disable or minimize "ET Phone Home" features in Windows. Here is one of them: https://www.w10privacy.de/english-home/

Glenn, You can disable Windows Ink Workspace. Here is tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/55771-enable-disable-windows-ink-workspace-windows-10-a.html Or you can use Ultimate Windows Tweaker: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-4-windows-10 https://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-5-for-windows-11

You are welcome.

You are basically correct. They are selling VLKs and used product keys.

Well, Mycodes24 website was created on May 8, 2023. If you look at their Contact Us page here - https://mycodes24.com/home/contact-mycodes24/ you will see that it is very strange looking address with numbers 208 and 9515 before the city. Very weird looking address for United States. Then on the same page you will time display which is in 24H format which is used in Europe: Also on the second image it shows Trustpilot logo. There is no information on the Trustpilot website about Mycodes24 company: https://www.trustpilot.com/search?query=mycodes24 Then I put some product in the cart and went to checkout and what do I see in terms of payment options? You see Coinbase, NihaoPay, PayTR, and Payrexx. Also, there is identical deal happening on CNet website now through StackSocial: https://www.cnet.com/deals/get-microsoft-office-2021-lifetime-license-just-33/ And here is a big thread about MS Office deal through StackSocial: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/has-anyone-purchased-microsoft-office-pro-2021/f6ca0653-cc5f-4ef9-a4ae-4ea91124bd21?page=1 So, the deal itself for MS Office 2021 is basically a scam selling VLKs or used product keys. I think it is enough red flags. PS Forgot to add. Here is fine print on Groupon page: Here is caveats print on Cnet page:

That mycodes24.com is very suspicious website.