Hi all. I seek advice as I have to rebuild my DAW on a new machine (Win11), which means re-installing all of my VSTs, Native Instruments, other Kontakt-related content, etc. I have TBs of material on my old (dead) PC. Given the time and effort required, I only want to do this once, which is why this post.
I have used Native Instruments for a few years and started with a hard disk install of KOMPLETE 12 with subsequent upgrades to KOMPLETE 13, KOMPLETE 13 ULT UPGRADE, KOMPLETE 13 COLLECTOR’s EDITION, and over a month ago, I acquired KOMPLETE 14 COLLECTOR’s EDITION. My former DAW was a Dell XPS 8900 Windows 10 with 32 GB RAM and an 8 TB HDD that was nearly full of digital audio content, synths, and so forth. I ran into two (2) issues with installing KOMPLETE 14 COLLECTOR’s EDITION. I upgraded to NATIVE ACCESS 2 (NA2) to install 14, only to find that NA2 would hang my machine. After talking with support, I back-leveled NATIVE ACCESS 2 to NATIVE ACCESS 1 (NA1) and installed everything but OZONE STANDARD 10, which is apparently incompatible with the NA1 installation process. I spent about four (4) weeks with support, attempting the usual workarounds for just this one product (disable/remove anti-virus software, safe boots, manually installing OZONE 10 STANDARD only to find no one could provide me with a license number to authorize it, and so forth). I seldom turned that machine off/on, knowing that this is typically harder on the hardware than just leaving it turned on. However, after four (4) weeks of ignoring my rule, I was never able to install OZONE 10 STANDARD, and now the machine no longer turns on. (I suspect the power supply, and once I build my new DAW, I’ll probably try to resurrect that old machine as a Linux server.) I reached the point where I decided to purchase a new machine with Win11 Pro 64GB RAM i9 Intel, which I am hoping will not have same issues. Therefore, I have a new machine on its way, and I am now planning the steps to reinstall numerous software packages and content for the DAW. Not that it matters, but I have been a Cakewalk user since the MSDOS days, stayed with it, and now use the latest version of Sonar. (From that, you might surmise I have a large amount of material in the Cakewalk/Sonar format. BTW, all of that is backed up on multiple servers.)
Okay, so that is the backstory. I do not want to make any false assumptions about what might happen during the upcoming NA2 installation process or end up missing a key component or two where I find that previous work/recordings can no longer load the appropriate content or that I end up missing some NI component I have used in the past. That is the reason for the post. I am hoping to hear from someone who has had a similar experience that I can learn/benefit from. I can pull the HDD from the dead machine and pop it into a USB HDD container, as I suspect there could be ways of short-cutting the download time, but, to minimize problems and ensure a successful build, I am content to download and install. I do have sufficient bandwidth capacity to make this reasonable. I have migrated from one machine to a new one multiple times over the years, but this latest dead machine has (by far) the most complex array of software, synths, VSTs, etc.
Now to my basic question: Do I restart the Native Instruments install steps using the KOMPLETE 12 hard disk install and mimic what happened in the past, or do I simply let NA2 run (and will everything just magically install)?
Any lessons learned from someone who has had a similar challenge?
Thanks in advance!
Mark
