Get latest libraries updated for K7/Session Guitarist updates

Hi!

I updated Session Guitarist libraries without knowing that from now they won't load in K7. There wasn't any warning about such major change to libraries I bought and use with K7. As a result I have message "your version of Kontakt is too old…".

Last year @Jeremy_NI posted a list of libraries for K6 for those users who "accidentally" updated. Today (August 16 2025) I without any worry updated Electric Sunburst, Electric Sunburst Deluxe, Electric Vintage, Picked Acoustic, Picked Nylon, Strummed Acoustic and Strummed Acoustic 2 libraries.

I don't want to install K8 Player just to load those libraries before I upgrade to Komplete 15 UCE. So please guide me to fix this - publish the list of downloads to restore these libraries to pre-K8 state. I have a backup to very old versions of these libraries, ~2020, but before K8 came out these libraries were updated in 2023 and later.

To avoid further inconveniences, please, give a warning to the user that "these libraries you are trying to update will work only with Kontakt that isn't installed on your machine!" Even better - don't allow to update libraries because they cannot be used with current version of player. I hope you understand that current situation is against any consumer law if you push users to upgrade main tool to use already bought libraries.

It would be better if there was a site where every Komplete 14 UCE user could download the product he bougth. That's the user rights. Do you agree?

Thx.

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Accepted answers

Jeremy_NI

@Arthur Neeman I totally understand your comments. It's a very complicated problem and it will take some time to make it bulletproof.

As some mods and users mentioned, you can find the installers for the previous versions of the libraries in the download manager. This is exactly why we brought this back. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/account/downloads/

How to use the NI Download Manager

Since some users can have several versions of Kontakt installed so it's not possible at the moment to have warnings before updating. We would definitely recommend to check release notes before updatiing. We always mention it, like this time:

And just to sum it up. NI libraries only require the free version of Kontakt, Kontakt Player, so it's not "to make you buy" the Kontakt update. The full version can be required for some third party libraries and you have more features.

It's alos worth mentioning that a lot of DAWs have an automigration system for Kontakt: Notes about Auto-Migration of Kontakt Versions in DAW Projects

We know it's not an ideal workflow but as you can see we're trying to improve the situation.

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Vocalpoint

Go here:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/account/downloads/

And the only way to avoid this is to not click Install on anything in Native Access with reading the Release Notes.

That is as good as it will ever get.

Arthur Neeman

Thank you!

With or without Release Notes it would be logical and correct to inform user about further inconveniences. So you recommend to uninstall Native Access? There is no reason to use it if all libraries will be updated for Kontakt 8. Right?

mykejb

You need Native Access to install any other software you might purchase and to update instruments you currently own. If you don't want to update anything uninstalling it is OK though. As VP says, at the moment it's not smart enough to figure out what libraries are compatible with the software you own so the only way to be sure is to check the release notes. Hopefully at some point NA will get a little smarter.

Arthur Neeman

Thanks, Mikejb!

I cannot uninstall NA because then I won't have latest updates on everything I bought (including Kontakt 7 - not so long ago there was an update).

I'm sure there are very few users who read release notes and mostly only when s*** happens. Almost everyone click on install because everyone start NA just for one reason - update and continue working. That simple! And NI knows that.

It is very simple to add a check on click - will user be able to use libraries after updating them. If programmer say it is hard to do that, he probably isn't programmer but just marketing specialist. It's not first time the company's policy cause the damage of user's workflow. This is happening for years.

NI don't add such check on click just for one reason - to push users to update to at least Kontakt 8 Player to use updated libraries with hope that user will be interested to upgrade more. Other companies do similar, but without damaging existing.

So the conclusion - I bought and upgraded many times the full Komplete UCE. But the company, knowing that I will always want my libraries up-to-date (and I'm eligible to have them), will damage them to push me upgrade to current Komplete. Can you beat this statement?

Vocalpoint

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/237991#Comment_237991

No - NA is a critical requirement for ALL product activation - so you must install it - you have no choice.

And also No - to all libraries being updated for Kontakt 8. I have many libraries here designed for Kontakt 5, 6 and 7 - many of which will never ever be updated.

"It is very simple to add a check on click - will user be able to use libraries after updating them. If programmer say it is hard to do that, he probably isn't programmer but just marketing specialist. It's not first time the company's policy cause the damage of user's workflow. This is happening for years."

To this comment - if it was "easy" - it would be done. NA would know everything about everything and this thread would not be necessary. But we are not there, it is not easy and you are not grasping the concept of just how many products are managed by NA (included hundreds upon hundreds of third party products) and how much programming it would take to accomplish the perfect checks and balances.

So until that day arrives - you have two choices - either warm up to reading Release Notes for every library you intend to install or update via NA OR never go into NA and never update anything - ever.

"So the conclusion - I bought and upgraded many times the full Komplete UCE. But the company, knowing that I will always want my libraries up-to-date (and I'm eligible to have them), will damage them to push me upgrade to current Komplete. Can you beat this statement?"

I will counter your statement with this one - no one is trying to "damage" you , or asking you or forcing you to update anything - ever. You can run whatever version of whatever library you want - for as long as your want.

For now - until NA achieves perfect product checking (which may or may not actually become a reality) it remains on all of us to never click Update in NA without reading Release Notes.

This takes two seconds and it 100% fail safe.

Arthur Neeman

Where in this release note is stated that it will be enough to run Player version rather than full Kontakt version to use updated libraries? And I still don't know can I install free Kontakt 8 Player to continue using libraries or download full libraries (tens of GB) and reinstall them. How do you call it if it's not disturbing of user's workflow? Reading Release Notes won't help as you see. If free Kontakt 8 Player isn't enough to use these updated libraries, then this situation is even worse.

I talked today with other users and they all said that it is nonsense to do this way. There should be a warning (even if there are release notes and even if it's clearly described) and more - these updates should not be possible to download nor install unless appropriate player is installed. I know you'll not agree and I know the NI team won't read this. Therefore this is time wasting thread. Thank you for your time. You can delete all this thread.

P.S. The same way (if NA don't warn about incompatibility with a popup message) why Kontakt 7 warns about incompatibility? Why there in player/full kontakt is possible to check whether the library is compatible with player, but in NA it is hard to implement? Why Kontakt 7 don't just load incompatible library and say - didn't you read Release Notes? See how absurd this situation is? :)

Vocalpoint

"Where in this release note is stated that it will be enough to run Player version rather than full Kontakt version to use updated libraries? And I still don't know can I install free Kontakt 8 Player to continue using libraries or download full libraries (tens of GB) and reinstall them"

Kontakt 8 Player and Kontakt 8 Full are identical products.

Regardless what "flavor" you decide to use - is irrelevant - just as long as the flavor is v8.4.0 (or higher) to use these new libraries. Don't read too much into it.

More importantly - if you already have a prior version of say - Picked Acoustic 2 - and choose to apply the new updater - while NA Access will indicate the library is like 9.2GB or something giant sized - the update only downloads a MB or two of new files and updates the library.

It takes just a few moments. You do not need to download another 9.2 GB library file for any of these updates.

Arthur Neeman

I know about updates that they are few MB. But I can't believe that Kontakt 8 Full is the same for free as Kontakt 8 Player.

mykejb

Kontakt player is pretty much the same product, just limited in some areas. You can only load officially licensed libraries, so libraries from a lot of the smaller companies won't work. All libraries from NI and partners work. You don't get access to any deep editing or UI editing. You can't import your own samples. For a large percentage of users that's quite enough.

Westwood Audio have quite a good explanation on their site here - https://www.westwoodinstruments.com/kontakt-full-vs-kontakt-player

Jeremy_NI

@Arthur Neeman I totally understand your comments. It's a very complicated problem and it will take some time to make it bulletproof.

How to use the NI Download Manager

It's alos worth mentioning that a lot of DAWs have an automigration system for Kontakt: Notes about Auto-Migration of Kontakt Versions in DAW Projects

We know it's not an ideal workflow but as you can see we're trying to improve the situation.

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