Steve Moddelmog

And meanwhile, this headline on CNBC: "Microsoft reports earnings beat as Azure revenue climbs 40%"

I get your last point, but it seems much more common for subscription-based software to periodically re-verify since it has to have some way to make sure your subscription is current. So that's why I'm criticizing the subscription model.

So people using Sonar's free version can work on and save projects, but those of us who have paid for the product cannot save anything?? There's no way to use Sonar free if you already have a paid account, is there?

Argh - Working on something I'm really excited about, have a new idea for the project, and suddenly there's a sign-in request. When I attempt to sign in, the login page times out repeatedly with "We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error." This is what is wrong with subscription-based software.

If you have DrumTools, which incorporates SlicyDrummer and FillinDrummer, it will load as a 32-bit VST with no problem in Sonar. It is a little clunky to use, but I sure do love those plugins.

Ah, I see what you mean. I never change the names of the tracks when I insert a synth (I do change them when I record myself playing guitar, bass, etc.). So I can reliably use Projectscope to find all my projects with a particular synth in them. Without going into specifics of why, that's the main thing I use it for. So it works for me, but it's not going to do what others are looking for.

You might also want to go to Windows settings - "System/Display" and make sure you are using the recommended Scale. Mine is 250%, and if I use, say 100%, everything in Windows is tiny. If I highlight the Scale control, I can see that 250% is "Recommended" and that is, in fact, what looks best on my screen for all programs.

In Kontakt, click on "View" (next to "File" and "Library" at the top) and then "Zoom" to whatever percentage (greater than 100%) makes things readable for you.

I just used Projectscope to search for projects with Kontakt. It returned probably close to 100 projects. For the ones returned for at least the past 5 years, Kontakt was inserted via "Insert/Soft Synth." I couldn't say whether it wfound every instance of Kontakt, but it certainly seems like it based on the number of projects. Also, if I search, for example, "Kontakt 8," it just returns projects with Kontakt 8. One shortfall is that sorting by date sorts first by the first letter of the month name, so it's not remotely chronological.

You can use it to search within a project without opening it, or you can search your Cakewalk Projects folder to find, for example, all projects that use Kontakt. Unfortunately, it won't tell you what presets were used for each VST.

https://adamczyk.com/miscellaneous-files/88-projectscope-exe-for-cakewalk-project-files

Interestingly, I'm no longer being offered the September update.

So I installed August update over today's September update and got the same error messages. But then I installed the second August update and all is working. Dare I try the September update again?

THIS is exactly why I don't like subscription software. My paid subscription just renewed for the year last month. New (September) version of Sonar appeared today and I installed it. Now it tells my "this version of Sonar has expired," and furthermore, it tells me to get a subscription! Under a permanent license, if an update has an issue, you just install the last working version and go about you music-making. I will reach out to support, but in the meantime I'm out of luck suing Sonar.