OK, which version are you using? Home, Pro, or Ultimate? I assume there’s a difference so please state your reasons why you picked one over the other. Thanks in advance.
Physical Memory Limits
Feature Comparison
I use Home Premium because it came with the computer. It is limited to 16GB of RAM.
With Pro or Ultimate you get up to 192 GB. Pro adds some networking features (business network type features). The Home Premium has home networking features though. You can also get encryption and Bit Locker in the Pro and Ultimate versions respectively. I included some links at the top to check out.
I don’t have any complaints. The system has been extremely well behaved.
HTH
J.L.
I am using pro on my laptop and ultimate in my studio - I think you won’t need ultimate for Cubase just pro - the limit on RAM is important IMO though many motherboards dont support so much RAM as more than 16 gig - this will be your current bottleneck - the mobo
OK, since my MB will only do 8G the Home Premium looks good. MS sells it on their site for $119 as an upgrade - are there better prices somewhere?
There will be otrher issues with premium, If I recal, and you need to check this, pro and above have a mechanism for running legacy programs wriiten for xp and below. Also, you must run in 64 bit to access larger memory and this means you need 64 bit drivers for all hardware inc sound card.
If you want to run 32 bit VST Steinberg’s VST bridge is notoriously unreliable the workaround for this is Jbridge - cost a few bucks but is worth it
All this needs careful thought, plan your system and then post it here for comments - there are other much more techy than me
Be careful about the “upgrade” versions if you want to do a clean install. Here’s a link that describes the issues …
If possible, I would suggest a “full” version install on a new hard drive. Start from a clean slate and you will know exactly what you are dealing with. I have, however, heard of people having no problems doing an in-place upgrade.
Just something to think about.
I find the street price difference between Pro and Ultimate is very little.
Ultimate allows other computers to RDP into it. That is, another computer can view its desktop and control it across the network. This is useful for configuring ‘headless’ (no monitor) slaves for VE Pro, etc.
In any case, the Anytime Upgrade direct from Microsoft allows converting to Ultimate, and they just send a new Product Code by email that enables the extended functionality within the existing installation.
Note that upgrading from XP to Win 7 forces a complete new install. The upgrade will only work inplace for Vista.
Even then, one can force a complete fresh install by installing twice in succession, but doing a ‘new’ install and NOT activating on the first and ‘upgrading’ AND activating on the second.
Thank you all for the insights. I have done the reading at this point and think I understand the required steps. I do get the ‘clean install’ thing and MS is pretty helpful with this in their articles. I am not looking forward to reinstalling all my 32 bit programs to 64 bit but I don’t have any choice. I am not looking forward to it. 
I have to say, at least at this point, I am looking forward to the improvements in the recording end of things. Having 8G is certainly not as much as a lot of you have but it will easily improve my game. I can also see why people just cut their losses and build a new computer. In my wildest dreams I never thought I would see a MB with room for 16G of ram. Live and learn.
Mr Roos
You can look forward to some rock solid perfomance with C6 64 bit. I have 12 gig of Ram but I have never used more than 8 even with full orchestral stuff. Should be enough for now.