FWIW, I was able to go 64-bit only about the time of C7, and this install has been rock-solid and has even survived the Win7->Win10 upgrade, now on C9 and Win10 with no crashes that I can even remember. Granted, small number of go-to VST FX and instruments, all 64-bit, but I’m happy to attribute that stability to the absense of 32-bit plugins.
Found it! It’s in “My Documents” which resolves to “Documents.”
What threw me off was there is also a My Documents shortcut, which gave me the permission denied error.
I seem to be rock solid stable for now. Not a single crash in this 8.5 project (loaded in 9) since removing all the 3rd party plugins. I’m slowly adding a few back and saving often.
Thanks again for the assistance!
Happy to report no crashes after 3 days since starting with fresh prefs & template.
Fingers crossed for some happy endings, or should that be beginnings?
Cubase 9 runs smoother than ever and is solid as a rock on Windows 10 here. Not only that but, in the many hours of use I’ve had since installing C 9, I’ve noticed that Cubase 9 boots significantly quicker than C 8.5 and I haven’t had anything even resembling a crash or a single hang-on-exit since… finally! Cubase 9 now closes correctly every time. Up to yet at any rate.
I rather think the new plug-in Sentinel is responsible for this stability. As far as I can see, no dodgy plug-ins or 32 bit plug-ins get passed it and. to all intents and purpose, that’s a good thing IMO. And I’m still able to use all my 32 bit PowerCore plug-ins with the help of Jbridge.
Cubase 9 is sweet 
I find them equally unstable when i’m pushing my ASIO load very near max or max.
It’s been a real pain for me in 8.5 for a while, but i’ve finally just had to bite the bullet and freeze most tracks in busy projects and hope I can get away just having my buses and return track inserts activated.
It seems I just often use too many CPU hungry inserts by the time it gets to mixdown, even with an i7 4790k @ 4.6Ghz.
I hate to think about all the hours i’ve wasted with crashes when trying to mixdown. 
At least v9 hasn’t so far forced me to restart my PC in order to re-open a project. I often had to restart my PC to avoid a crash on re-load of the Cubase and then the project in 8.5.
No hang on exits in 9 either which is good, but I hadn’t been getting a huge amount of issues with that in 8.5 as of late.
It’s only fair to report an update on this. I started a new c9 project with my regular template with all my favourite plugs and imported the audio and midi from the problematic session discussed above (using import from project). It’s now working great again. Runs well and so far, seems fine.
Maybe I just got unlucky with a corrupted session? I’ve experimented with opening all kinds of sessions and closing/reopening etc…all seems good. I think i just got unlucky with the other one. Something wasn’t right though.
As a side note, (and I’m sure this must be purely psychological), but C9 sounds better/clearer than c8.5 to me. Same project with same plugs/settings sounds different to me in c9 than they do in c8.5. I’ve experimented with a couple of sessions.
I assume the audio engine is identical, so maybe my ears are just playing tricks on me. 
I have to admit I thought I would experience 6 months of bugs and workarounds but to my surprise this is the first time I have upgraded Cubase without a glitch. I was really shocked and running so smooth I am still in shock.
I have never ever had this happen and I started with Cubase 4 back in the day. I was so frustrated at times I contemplated on Pro-tools and or just learning a new Daw all together.
I can really say Cubase 9 fixed problems I also had with Wave Lab 9. Now that is a first because they now complement each other very well.
For my Plugins I use j bridge and all my plugins work and I am truly thankful for this. I run 3 plugins types UAD,PowerCore and Waves and they all work flawless for a change.I always had to pick and choose witch plugins I used in a project because more times than not it crashed constantly or spikes witch caused many audio-drop outs. I kept Cubase 8.5 just in case but after a week problem free I uninstalled it.
All systems are a go with Win 10 and I can never see myself upgrading again after many years of frustration. I feel you if you are having problems trust me especially when you just want to work on a stable system. Thank you for finally getting it right.
Improvements are nice and OK but honestly those you could give out for free. Stability is the key and my main goal for me and only speaking for myself.
For that I give Cubase a 10 for stability.
I thought I would never say it but for me Cubase 9 is the most improved for me since I started using the Daw. For that I am truly thankful and really satisfied with this update. It has making music not just fun again but having customers in the studio and your computer not crashing for one reason or another interrupting a session is priceless.
I find it so strange the variation of strengths and problems people are having, it makes me wonder…
I was reading earlier where someone has to remove all their plug-ins and put them back one by one and then go to extreme measures, using more than one DAW, just to get their system to run projects created with an earlier version of Cubase without crashing…
What the hell is going on? They have exactly the same software as I do. Honestly, my computer, which is getting on for three years old now, just eats everything I throw at it. You can see below. OK I have UAD and PowerCore but truly, I use plenty of native VSTi’s and power hungry plug-ins. I experiment a lot. I have racks of plug-ins in my sends, just for the hell of it. Apart from the new Ozone voice plug-in, which is power monster, I do well to rarely get 50% ASIO load. Really, power load is just not an issue here.
Wasn’t there a video floating about regarding “real time” something or other?
If it isn’t Cubase, and it isn’t, Then what?
I’ve found C9 is about “as stable” as 8.5 - which isn’t saying much.
The audio engine seems to be able to take more. I can load more Kontakts before Cubase’s ASIO meter goes nuts.
But a lot of the same issues persist. Video service often hangs after closing large projects. Graphics/GUI tearing issues are still there. ASIO spikes still happen more often than they should. MIDI Retrospective Record still often creates malformed regions. Expression Maps still have chase bugs. List goes on forever…
9 crashed on me today all i did was move a midi track sideways while it was playing ,it warned me that the world was gonna end and told me to rename my project,i wasnt bothered cause i cant take it too serious at the moment, shame realy cause i want to get using the sampler .i wouldn`t trust it for a couple of months yet and still waiting for people to sort the legacy plugs out.
C9 is really unstable here too ! Mr Steinberg said “the most stable DAW on the market” !! A joke !
I can’t work more than one hour without crash on W7. And as idiot as we are, we paid for this ! How can they release a false 9.0 (should be 8.6) that doesn’t work like that ?! 
Amazing. Nothing really new & interesting in this version ! Ooops ! Yes ! Something new ! 6 or 7 crashes a day ! 
Alls well with Cubase 9 in both Windows 7 & Windows 10.
Rock solid, most stable Cubase version I have used.
As usual the only crashes are when I use Halion, with 8.5.20 I get no crash dumps, with 9.01 I had one empty crash dump file.
Update: I’m pleased to report not a single crash in v9 since removing all my plugins from the project and carefully adding a limited selection back in. And not a single crash on exit yet, which is the first time I can say this since v7 days.
Also, I did end up getting VEP to offload all my VSTis and it’s working much better than expected. Flawlessly, so far. What a great system VEP is. I wish I had jumped aboard years ago.
Happy for now, but I’m not flexing Cubase’s muscles very hard at the moment, so time will tell. Knock on wood.
I’m image backing up this DAW and not changing a thing until new music is DONE. 