A few years ago when I first started out with Cubase, I bought Elements 11. This was installed on the SSD drive on my Windows 10 laptop. I gradually installed quite a lot of 3rd party VSTs also. The main VST folders are in the Steinberg folder in Program Files in the SSD drive.
I eventually outgrew Elements 11 and upgraded to Cubase 12 Pro a couple of months ago. As my SSD drive was pretty full, I had to install Cubase 12 Pro in the HDD drive on my laptop instead. It seems to work ok, but do you think it would run faster if installed on the SSD drive?
Anyway, my main question is, if I uninstall Elements 11, how can I make sure it keeps all the folder with the VSTs in? I use these VSTs with Cubase 12 Pro so I don’t want to get rid of them. Will all folders under ‘Steinberg’ get deleted upon uninstalling? Or can I move the VSTs somewhere else beforehand, perhaps? And is it ok to uninstall via my laptop, or does it have to be done via the Steinberg Download Assistant?
Finally, if I wanted to reinstall Cubase 12 Pro onto the SDD drive, can it be deleted off the HDD drive and downloaded/installed again as part of my licence I got when I bought it? I’m wondering if I’ll lose my current Cubase projects and files if I do this also. Thanks.
Just use the normal Windows Uninstaller. It won’t touch your VSTs or libraries. But I’d recommend installing Cubase 12 before uninstalling Cubase 11. Personally I have Cubase 12, 11 and several other versions installed. Older versions don’t cause problems. A lot of folks are especially keeping Cubase 11 around since it is the last version that can run VST2 plug-ins. You can freely open Projects in different versions back-and-forth without problem (of course only stuff supported by a version is available, but you won’t loose anything).
Cubase, the program, really really really wants to be on your system disk. Putting it elsewhere is asking for problems. But the program is small, just checked and it is 1GB here. However the audio content libraries, which are what consume a lot of diskspace, can be put anywhere you like. Use the Steinberg Library Manager to move content. Or search the forum for how to move the files using Windows and re-register them in bulk
Regarding HDD vs. SSD performance, you’ll get the most benefit from putting large sample Libraries on an SSD. Second most beneficial is have your Projects on an SSD. The Cubase program will work fine on either, but if it’s on your system disk that’s likely gonna be an SSD nowadays
Nah, you’ll be fine. Of course we should all be performing regular system backups - all the more so before a big change.