Save that old version of CbB

[Starship Krupa]

This is an oft-broached topic, people bemoaning that something doesn't work right after an upgrade or how do I roll back to the previous version, yada yada (before figuring out that it was something else that changed on their system that broke it), so I'll share a tip.

Typically when CbB is updated, the major changes only occur in C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core (assuming you have installed Cakewalk in the default location, if you have not, adjust accordingly)

If you want to upgrade to the latest version of CbB yet also retain the ability to run the previous version, all you need to do is make a copy of Cakewalk Core before you let the upgrade do its thing. If you want to get fancy, you can rename the copied folder to reflect exactly which revision of the program it contains. In this way you could have 2 or 3 revisions of CbB sitting there if you wanted to.

To set this up:

Right click on C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core and select Copy.

Right click in the C:\Program Files\Cakewalk folder and select Paste.

This will result in there being a new folder with the name "Cakewalk Core - Copy" which you can rename "Cakewalk Core Previous" or whatever.

Then let the upgrade run its course.

If you want to run the previous version, all you need to do is run the Cakewalk.exe that is inside the "Cakewalk Core Previous" folder, which you can do directly or from a shortcut.

[Jim Fogle]

This thread is a nice idea.  As much as the "how do I roll back to a previous version" question gets asked I won't be surprised when someone suggests this thread becomes a sticky note.  I wish it could be copied to the "Frequently Asked Questions" and "Tutorials" sections.

[msmcleod]

I've been doing this for a while. It certainly gives peace of mind:

Rather than renaming the old version just before an upgrade, I tend to make the copy as soon as I upgrade. That way I'm less likely to forget.

[Larry Jones]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

...all you need to do is make a copy of Cakewalk Core before you let the upgrade do its thing.

This is a fine, fine idea. People who don't do this will no doubt continue to ask how they can roll back, though. ?

[scook]

15 minutes ago, Larry Jones said:

People who don't do this will no doubt continue to ask how they can roll back, though

Yeah, I wonder if any amount of threads like this one will have an impact on new threads regarding roll back. I have on numerous occasions posted a similar solution (and discussed its shortcomings), a tool to manage multiple versions of SONAR/CbB since 2016 and a method to retain installers since CbB was introduced.

 

[Jim Fogle]

57 minutes ago, Larry Jones said:

This is a fine, fine idea. People who don't do this will no doubt continue to ask how they can roll back, though. ?

The problem is most people won't know they need this suggestion until they need to roll back.  By then it may be too late.

I'm not a programmer but it would seem that the CbB installer could execute a bat file or something similar to automatically create a backup of the Cakewalk Core folder prior to starting the update.

[Larry Jones]

1 minute ago, fogle622 said:

The problem is most people won't know they need this suggestion until they need to roll back.  By then it may be too late.

I'm not a programmer but it would seem that the CbB installer could execute a bat file or something similar to automatically create a backup of the Cakewalk Core folder prior to starting the update.

Since this has come up in this forum so many times, and the staff at Cakewalk reads here, I have to think they have a reason for not wanting us to be able to roll back easily. Probably they'd rather have a shot at fixing problems instead of users simply reverting to an older version and never telling Cakewalk about the issues they have. My opinion only.

[martsave martin s]

i have this set up on my computer

Cakewalk_by_BandLab_Setup_25.01.0.27

[Starship Krupa]

8 hours ago, fogle622 said:

The problem is most people won't know they need this suggestion until they need to roll back.  By then it may be too late.

Wellll, see my snarky parenthetical comment about  a person's issue usually being something other than an update to Cakewalk itself.

I just do not believe that there are enough instances where an update to the CbB software actually hoses someone's DAW system for it to matter.

What usually seems to happen, in my observation, is that an upgrade ships, then someone's setup breaks a few days later and the upgrade is only one of the things that has changed by that time, including updates to Windows 10, plug-ins, drivers, etc. I've noticed that the cries for rollbacks seldom happen right after an upgrade ships, which is when you would expect to hear them if they contained code likely to have great negative effect.

To be fair, when someone is in ripping your hair out troubleshooting mode, it could come in quite handy to be able to at least eliminate the Cakewalk update as the source of injury.

I'm putting this up as an answer to an oft-asked question, and in case savvy users like you and Mark want to archive older builds. I really, really wish there were a Tips 'n' Tricks subforum on here. I know there is a Tutorials forum, but that is for posting links to offsite tutorials. Steve Cook has already posted it more than once, but  not with the flashy title as its own topic. This one can be bump't if we get tired of people asking.?

As Mark said, it's for peace of mind. Not what I would consider a necessity. I don't actually do it myself.

Each build of CbB is thoroughly raked over by a horde of beta testers, and if there were any further nastiness it would be intercepted instantly by people who automatically let BA have its way and would post on the forum. The devs would code up a patch and push it out right away. So for people in the middle of mission-critical projects and whatnot, simply waiting a few days after each version drops is what I would consider sufficient insurance against bugs.

Cakewalk: The Vanishing was about the worst bug I've seen make it into the wild in the BandLab era, and it was squashed pretty quickly.

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, pwalpwal said:

would be a nice feature if the assistant managed this - maybe a checkbox "backup previous version" and an option to set the backup location, with an option to rollback...

I've never seen any software company do that and it's hard to imagine one doing it.

You get why: it's the equivalent of saying "we have so little faith in our QA process that we have this handy option for you to get rid of the latest and greatest improved version in case we've fscked it up."

It will simply. Never. Happen.

[marcL]

One thing that concerns me are the changes in the "Shared Plugins" folders and there are more candidate folders to be mentioned ("Vstplugins", "X3Vstplugins", ...). Are they compatible with older CbB versions, Splat, X3? I wonder, are there surely no side effects?

Second, I saved the installation executable of most versions. Can't I uninstall and then install such an old version? Is there a caveat?

[msmcleod]

15 minutes ago, marled said:

One thing that concerns me are the changes in the "Shared Plugins" folders and there are more candidate folders to be mentioned ("Vstplugins", "X3Vstplugins", ...). Are they compatible with older CbB versions, Splat, X3? I wonder, are there surely no side effects?

Second, I saved the installation executable of most versions. Can't I uninstall and then install such an old version? Is there a caveat?

That's exactly the limitations @scook was talking about.

All the shared folders are used by multiple versions of Cakewalk & SONAR.

The good news is that the components there are rarely updated. If you check the file dates, you'll see most have never been updated.

The big exception to this is the Shared Utilities folder - things like the VstScan.exe and PluginManager.exe do get updated.

[marcL]

9 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

I've never seen any software company do that and it's hard to imagine one doing it.

You get why: it's the equivalent of saying "we have so little faith in our QA process that we have this handy option for you to get rid of the latest and greatest improved version in case we've fscked it up."

It will simply. Never. Happen.

Yes, maybe you are right. But IMO the conclusion that it would be a QA fault is not quite correct, because a user may have only a problem in combination with his PC, operating system, configuration, interface driver, plugins and the DAW. So they can test a new release as long as they want, but they never will be able to verify all possibilities! Hence, in such a case it would be a great parachute for the user, minimum to postpone the trouble till there is time to investigate the real problem.

"It will simply never happen": It happened actually, you were able to rollback Splat with the Command Center to any release back! I liked it.

[Starship Krupa]

Oh good heavens, things were worse than I thought. Really?

Wow. I wasn't kidding when I said that I'd never seen (nor heard of) any software company doing that, and given the egos I encountered when I was in the software biz, I find it astonishing. An OS update, yes, but they're usually touting the latest update as having fixed everything.

[marcL]

2 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

That's exactly the limitations @scook was talking about.

All the shared folders are used by multiple versions of Cakewalk & SONAR.

The good news is that the components there are rarely updated. If you check the file dates, you'll see most have never been updated.

The big exception to this is the Shared Utilities folder - things like the VstScan.exe and PluginManager.exe do get updated. 

Thanks msmcleod!

I forgot to mention that when I compared the "Shared Plugins" of my systems lately, I found some differences although they have the same CbB and Splat versions. For some reason, most surely my fault, they ended up to be different. It is also possible that the installation order was not the same, but I really don't know.

[Bapu]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

I've never seen any software company do that and it's hard to imagine one doing it.

You get why: it's the equivalent of saying "we have so little faith in our QA process that we have this handy option for you to get rid of the latest and greatest improved version in case we've fscked it up."

It will simply. Never. Happen.

Ummmmm, the Cakewalk Command Center did just that. It had the ability to roll back to any version you wanted. I even did it a few times just to be sure I wasn't 'drunk at the time' something went nutzo.

[scook]

2 hours ago, marled said:

Second, I saved the installation executable of most versions. Can't I uninstall and then install such an old version? Is there a caveat?

There is no need to uninstall before rollback - running the old version installer is enough. This is how rollback worked in the Cakewalk Command Center.

Starting with 2018-11 if running the previous release of CbB, BA downloads an update installer instead of the full CbB installer. This is a much smaller file and may only be applied to the previous release. BA downloads the full installer only on the initial install and if the installed version is not the previous release.

I force BA to download the new full installer for every release by running an old installer prior to running the update.

[Starship Krupa]

Yes, and I am amazed for the reason I said.

[Larry Jones]

3 hours ago, Bapu said:

Ummmmm, the Cakewalk Command Center did just that. It had the ability to roll back to any version you wanted. I even did it a few times just to be sure I wasn't 'drunk at the time' something went nutzo.

To be fair (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong about this) the "rollback feature" in the Cakewalk Command Center was not really a feature at all, but just a side effect of the fact that CCC did not automatically delete the installers after they were run (as Bandlab does), and they were all full versions. So all versions were there to reuse whenever we thought we needed to roll our installations back.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Larry Jones
clarity

[scook]

CCC reads data about all versions available for all CCC aware installers for a user from a server side database and uses this as the basis for the rollback lists. When rolling back (or installing) CCC checks if the installer is cached, if found it uses the cached version otherwise it downloads the installer from the server.