Sounds like spending a day reinstalling your system is in order. Maybe using a debloat tool like Chris Titus' tool as well. I use it and am very happy with it coming from W7. It basically feels exactly the same to me now aside from the settings menus and there's none of that telemetry/automatic/background bs everyone complains about in W11. Once all your usual programs are installed and it's all configured nicely as your base - pre audio system - back it up. This way you can always go back to that point if anything goes wrong in the next step.

Now start installing your audio stuff. Start with the basics, DAW, audio editor, interface drivers, check they're fine and don't forget all the settings, directories etc in each. It's not a bad idea to do another backup at this point if you're confident everything works as it should.

Now start doing the plugins. After every 10 or so, go into the DAW and check everything is loading and working ok and proceed to the next batch. Tip: make a list of your goto plugins before this whole reinstall process. Install those goto ones first. The ones you always use. Once you've got all of those installed and tested as working, now it's time to make the final stage backup. This is the moment to go through each plug, press the replace plugin button thing so you're just loading one at a time and make sure everything is good. Again, once you're sure it's all running smooth, make that last backup.

From here you're basically free to do what you want. Try new plugs out, reconfigurations, whatever you want, safe in the knowledge you can always go back to that working base setup after things get a bit messy over the following months as they tend to do. I've been doing it this way for years, slowly refining the setup, figuring out what plugins are really necessary and trying to keep things as streamlined and hassle free as possible. The more work you put into the prep, the less work it takes when it's time to go back to that base level, clean slate.

Also, as an extra tip, keep a text file of changes you've made so you know what needs to be done once you've recovered the clean slate. System tweaks, new plugs, whatever updates to already existing stuff. That way you can get all that sorted from the get go, and if you're sure they're for keeps you can always make a new backup so the next time you recover, those updates will all be in place.

I'm a minimalist so I prefer one backup both for simplicity and space concerns. So I delete all the older step backups once I'm confident everything is properly sorted. Incremental, multi stage backups are not a bad idea, but that's not my personal bag.

Anyway, the main takeaway with this system is you'll always be able to go back to a freshly installed state no matter what goes wrong as long as you keep everything in order and make sure it's all working before making those backups.

 

Last edited: Apr 28, 2026 at 11:43 PM

Well, I'm certainly not going to disparage any releasers etc as bad form and etiquette, but to put it this way, for things like Ableton or Kontakt or Fabfilter or something I haven't purchased or have and need to use a grey area version, I tend to lean on releases from HCiSO, GUISEPPE, VR, Flare, (and while their macOS releases are becoming less) , obviously R2R.

I'm sure I left a team or 2 out of that, but I have had little to zero (again, can't remember) problems from those teams or releases in all due respect.

(I'm also mainly using macOS, so those sources are primarily related to that os...)

 

Makes me want to buy a Mac, logic and start afresh. My spirit is calling for it

 

Caught some video with Linus Torvalds, long story short, degradation of components is what I got from that video and over time it will start causing issues, knowing QC of latest components, no doubt most folks got some B grade stuff from the get go and usually DIY mentality is gravitating towards best deals, cheaper bang for the bucks, it kinda makes sense. You can update BIOS and horror, they update OS and horror again, so many moving parts, you update Ableton, again horror.

At one point, no matter the platform, you need to stop updating stuff that is actually working, Mac folks got this obsession with being on latest macOS for some strange reason, but at least those are tested in environment with less moving parts and still there are bugs and issues. Logic isn't perfect, far from it, you can find threads like for Ableton, which combo of what is the best and all that, but at least you know there's a combo of macOS and version of Logic, here you don't know what is the issue really, combo of your components, some of your components, update of whatever software and all that in combination with everything. Developers also wash their hands, like it's only happening on your system, they can't do that for macOS, because it would affect everyone and it does affect everyone, so they are eager to fix it.

 

Nooo.. Scene released stuff is generally more stable than the legit stuff and much less prone to being fouled by updating because that junk is disabled especially now with R2R system.

Sounds like from your description that the crashing issue with this particular machine seems a bit chronic and happens more than just with abletonYou might try doing a MEMtest and/or check the integrity of all storage, SSD and/or NVMe devices. You may have some kind of underlying hardware issue that is bringing down the OS with blue screens which may have been your issue all along.

Barring that, if the production machine is kept connected to the internet and the OS has not been properly optimized including all updating being turned completely OFF you are asking for trouble - and trouble you will get. Also, running AntiVirus and and other malware detection wares is counter productive to the audio production side of the equation and can hamper installations and operations of DAW's & plugin's, etc... IF you must be on the internet with the same machine used for production ALL the installed audio/video warez need to be blocked from network access so they cannot phone home. Which is why I will always recommend separating the two usage models onto two different machines - one machine (this can be a low cost beater machine as it doesn't have to move mountains) optimized for exclusive internet use, and the other machine kept OFFLINE for production use. This follows with the fact that with the offline machine you do not need firewalls, anti-virus, malware detectors, autonomous updaters ,etc, etc which makes life much easier on the production side of things re: the platform...

MAC vs PC is not an issue as there are a great many of us here who have been running winOS very successfully doing audio and video production for years and not had issues. I would venture to guess that the numbers of users on here running either platform is semi-equal Generally, issues such as yours is either due to a hardware malfunction, or OS non-optimization, or internet connections being allowed to run amok with OS updates and other software updaters messing up cracks and other stuff on the host system.

 

Last edited: Apr 29, 2026 at 12:01 AM

My PC is optimized, I dont have virus software installed, I dont have updates on windows turned on, but it is connected to the internet. Simple as just disconnecting the wifi?

 

3-Chapter short story:

Chapter 1: WINDOWS

I use Ableton, I run Windows 10.

I'm new to music production, so I've probably downloaded and at least tried 60-70% of all software that was uploaded here in the last 2 years. I don't know what's good, or what I need so I try out anything that seems remotely useful.

I don't remember a SINGLE blue screen of death crash ever happening. Sure, Ableton crashes sometimes (rarely), but never the entire computer. That's why you save often, to different filenames, and check your crash logs, so you can always track down what caused the crash and backtrack the change that caused it.

Most of the time, it's not that any single piece of software causes the crash, but rather that certain combinations of software cause a crash, while everything actually works individually.
And from my 30+ years experience dealing with computers, this is just normal, nobody can predict every contingency.

I don't think PCs are to blame, or windows...rather individual machines, mismanaged installations, poor software decisions.


Chapter 2: MAC

I've used a Mac for a month in my life for video editing. Macs do this stupid thing where they don't store individual files, but rather package your whole project in one GIANT library file, where all your footage is stored.

That ONE file somehow got corrupted and wouldn't work any more, I had 64gb of footage in there. It was a brand new mac, and I've heard for years about how stable and good macs are, so I didn't make a backup of my footage after dumping my SD card.

Called Apple support, they said, yeah, shit happens, there is nothing that can be done, just restore your iCloud backup.

Oh, you don't have an iCloud subscription? Well, then you should definitely get one, it's only 99$ a month.

Never touching a Mac again for the rest of my life.


Chapter 3: WAREZ

And if you think that warez is to blame?

Have you ever paid Adobe their 50$ bullshit subscription for years, only to have their software crash, perpetually, over and over again, to the point of questioning your life decisions and how stupid you were back then, when you thought "Yeah, it's probably crashing because it's cracked, I'll just pay up for the real deal".

Well, I have. And let me tell you, no, it wasn't the cracks.

 

Last edited: Apr 29, 2026 at 12:09 AM

You seem to be bad with computers so maybe a Mac is what you need. Been running the same OS for the past 10+ years over multiple Windows and hardware upgrades. There's clearly something wrong and you don't know how to diagnose it, so cut your losses while you're not losing any important files.

 

I'm not in the live ecosystem, but while I buy a lot, I still use the cracked versions because IMHO they do run better than the shitty protection implementation some developers use.
To me it sounds like some hardware issues. But you say you upgrade a lot.. So Back when every component of your pc was different, was it the same? Btw: Something a lot of people miss: A half broken power supply can give you all sorts of things. So when people say "Nah, its not even the same computer anymore", sometimes theres still a slowly dying PSU in there.
Or defective ram?
That "You need to optimize windows" thing.
Yeah, I mean you can do that, I do that too. But just for feel good. There was a magazine with good reputation that benched the shit out of "optimized" vs "unoptimized" windows. The outcome was that it is even hard to measure. It's that little.
What an unoptimized windows certainly won't give you is crashes. It's rather the other way round. An ultra stripped down lite install might have important components missing. Thats why I use stock isos and strip myself.
Do you have some background stuff running? Antivirus? Comptetetive games with anti tamper and anti cheat mechanism? (these install rootkits, its the only way to find aimbots and things like that).

 

LOL yeah maybe your right i dont want to be good with computers, i just want to make music and not have the shit magically crash every 20 minutes I cant keep up with all of this shit

 

Some users run overclocked memory, overclocked graphics cards, gaming drivers, and low-cost motherboards without any prior research into whether their components work well together. When a crash occurs, they point fingers at the PC, Windows, Ableton, and so on. But the real issue is their own compatibility mismatches, poor driver choices, and insufficient understanding, all of which lead to an above-average number of crashes.

 

No, I use this computer for music and to come on here and complain shits not working thats literally it i have a shit computer for torrents ect

yeah see this is why i need to switch to mac, i just cant keep up with it too many moving parts

yeah my illustrator crashed even when i paid for it lol

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 29, 2026 at 2:28 AM

I would not discount the possibility of a hardware issue. But In lieu of that, yes it's just as simple as removing/turning off the network interface being used by the internet.

By the way, if you're running win10/11 and expecting the windows gui updater toggles to turn off updates and telemetry guess again. You can turn that thing off, reboot and it will turn itself right back on again. As well, if the updater and updater-medic services are allowed to remain on those OS's will still exchange telemetry and connect to update servers. Of course if there's no internet connection there's no need to keep that stuff around. I simply removed the services from my prod box and the internet box as well.

 

No i did something that permanently disabled the updates i didnt just turn them off because that didnt work

 

It's your prerogative as to what platform you use. As I said before it's not a matter of mac vs win. There's nothing that can be done on a windows machine that can't be done on apple or vice versa anymore. Reducing the "moving parts" is what it's all about on the windows side. Once those "parts" are removed it's smooth sailing after that. All us windows folks on here can attest to this. Maybe you do belong on the apple side, but be advised, the apple side is no piece of cake either especially if you're running a lot of warez...

 

The only crashes i had related to cracked software were homecalling/timebomb crashes. But those were general problems and not something on my machine. And to be honest, even with the software i paid for, i use the K'd versions because there are less activation steps, bloat and interaction between different software. My machine seems to work better with R2R than with most of the licensing software out there. Yes, i'm using Windows, and no, i'm not using Ableton. I'd check the hardware or the DAW.

 

blaming k'd software for this issue is kind of unfair to most Teams. Comparing Winodws to MacOS in this way is unfair to Microsoft. Microsoft are writing their Operating System that is going to get run on all sorts of random hardware configurations. Apple are building their own Operating System around only the Macs they sell. Most random hardware never ends up in a Mac. MacOS ships with Core Audio, and there are not users sticking some 3rd-party ASIO drivers, then some other random drivers, and so on. They are engineered and then tightly controlled what can be added to create conflicts.

The answer is not this being the cost of cracked software. It's the result of running Windows. When it comes to this subject of crashes and system instability, Apple and Microsoft do not even belong in the same conversation. They are not even remotely close.

 

here is the thing... if YOU BUY it wont crash.. sounds weird right? yes really weird.. and cracked is more unstable.

that is the truth. and windows 11 sucks and i am waiting for windows 12 and i hope they make it as windows XP

 

Yeah, regardless of personal os choice, when I'm working, regardless of whether or not I'm using grey ware stuff, I'm always offline.

I button up my system to the best of my ability and knowledge, but there is no reason for me to be online for me when working on music.

And I can't remember the last time I had a problem using discretion with particular installs and all of that. (certainly not one I can remember that wasn't user error on my part which has always been able to be fixed..)

I'll have a sidecar computer etc, but no one will ever say disconnecting from the internet etc while doing things is the wrong thing to do you know?