Computer died - Can I reinstall old Sonar?

[Philip G Hunt]

Well, it finally happened. My Dell XPS just died on me, which means I need to buy a new laptop and go through the hassle of reinstalling all my versions of Sonar going back to 2000.

My question is - is it still possible to install those older versions in 2025?

Any help appreciated.

 

BTW - my user name was originally 53mph, but I cannot seem to be able to log in to the forum anymore using just email - it takes me to Facebook every time and my old profile was not associated with Facebook :(

[msmcleod]

The short answer is yes (up to a point), however as always the devil is in the details.

First of all, you need to make sure you have access to your old cakewalk account at legacy.cakewalk.com in order to download your old products.  Your username / password will be the same as what you use for the Cakewalk Command Center.   This may be different to your BandLab username/password that is used in Sonar / Cakewalk Product Center.   If you've forgotten this, or have problems accessing your products/service packs, contact support@cakewalk.com

Secondly, I doubt you'll need to go as far back as 2000 - you probably only need to as far back as Sonar X1 (released Dec 2010).

Older versions (pre Sonar 8 ) may have compatibility issues with Windows 11.  These older versions of Sonar rely on older versions for the Microsoft VC++ distributables which, while still available, may not be fully compatible with Windows 11.  You can download all of the VC++ redists from Microsoft here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170 .  You shouldn't have issues installing these (and you may need them for earlier versions of Sonar to run at all), but don't expect them to work 100%.

Finally, I'd recommend installing the VC++ redists first, then install the versions of Sonar in order (i.e. earliest first). 

If you really need the earlier versions of Sonar installed, consider installing Windows XP 32 bit (or even Windows 7 32 bit if you can get it to authorise) on a separate disk.  This is what I've done.   Unfortunately if you're using GPT formatted disks, you won't see your 32 bit versions on the boot screen on a dual boot, but you can press F8 every second or so on start up to pick the disk with Windows XP on it.

[Philip G Hunt]

Thanks @msmcleod

I only install the older versions so that I can install all the plug-ins and vsts that can't with them.  For example sonar 8.

The last version of sonar that I always left installed on my system side by side with the new CbB and Sonar was Splat. 

I already archived all my exe files for everything... It's more a case of authorisation that I was worried about.