HALion6/HS3/HS3SE - but not on WIN7 (64bit)

No Win-7 = no money from me :frowning:

Thanks for the heads-up.

Does any one know if it will actually run on Win 7 64bit?

I think it’s short sighted of steinberg not to support win 7 64bit as there are many of us using it because of it’s stability the ability to switch off updates.

I was wondering the same thing. If it’s simply a question of SB not supporting Win7, then fine.

Seems strange that the host DAW would work in Win7 and not a plugin.

I would understand this if it was a backward compatibility issues with a plugin, but not this.

This just means that the plugin wont be tested on Windows 7, but pretty much everything that works with Windows 8 also runs on Windows 7 flawlessly.

that nearly for sure
but the problem is: support-ticket and when SB sees “Win7” they only will help in the way “please update your OS” :frowning:

Perhaps - except we’re talking Steinberg. Perquisites are taken seriously here.

Even though I don’t like this since I am running Windows 7 myself and I actually have to buy a whole new audio interface if I want to run Windows 10, I still understand Steinbergs position.

The trial version of HALion 6 will be released in March so we’ll have to wait and see.

Didn’t even think to check that Windows 7 is supported, as it is still a valid O/S, before purchasing!! :blush:

With the recent release of Cubase 9 supporting Windows 7 it just didn’t occur to me that Steinberg would drop support with out some fairly major warnings on the purchasing pages. (OK, I can now see that Windows 8/10 are listed after the O/S logo, but it doesn’t stand out until you are looking for the information!)

I would be happy to keep the purchase if it will run on Windows 7, otherwise I will have to see if I can get a refund.

I can understand the 64 bit choice and saw the information about this, but surely dropping Windows 7 support should havebeen highlighted as well?

Steinberg any chance that this decision might be re-appraised?

Trying to get H6 working on W7-64 I previously posted:


"OK - the lowdown:

Halion 6 installs onto Win7 64bit BUT will not run - gets stuck in initialisation, both stand-alone and within Cubase 9 Pro. Resart required to get the PC back running.

At least Halion 6 is blacklisted in VST plugins :smiley:

Come on Steinberg, we need H6 to work on W764 in C9P :exclamation:"

But someone has installed it on W7-64 :slight_smile:

Exactly. My intention was just to buy the update blind since it’s only €99,-. However even a €99,- price tag is too much for a product without official support. I can wait until my DAW moves to Win 10. :slight_smile:

This being the internet, finding solid, matching statistics is quite hard.

The long and the short is that Win7 is still the most popular operating system by far. It has more market share than Win 10 and all Mac OS versions combined.

Anyone who’s been doing this for a while and has clients, knows that if you have a stable system, you hang on for dear life. Thinking of my early days, if formatting a hard drive was an Olympic sport, I would be a gold medallist.

Win 8 wasn’t great so I never upgraded. With Win 10 I just didn’t see the point because everything was running fine as is. (see previous paragraph)

When I dabbled in website design as a hobby, I remember reading how developers complained having to ensure compatibility with IE 6 in some cases, because it still had ± 13% market share at the time. Depending on the source Win 7 has anywhere from 40% - 48%. With Steinberg’s obvious move for Halion as a truly viable alternative to Kontakt, ignoring this section of the market seems truly short sighted.

The world is a big place, many DAWs many OSs. To be competitive compatibility should be taken into account.

++1 agree.


SB have released their flagship sampler H6, and touted that one of the new amazing features, a toolkit to create, ‘our own content libraries’. ref : https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=110992&p=611765#p611463

… I then interpret the non-support of WIN7 as :
For content developers, this also infers that the target demographics that SUPPORTED content (and by inference installations of HS3-SE ) can be created for, is also now limited and restricted to the supported OS platforms by SB and the (H6/HS3/HS3-SE) matrix.

In other words, you will not be able to create (supported) content for Win7-64bit for (StudioOne, Abletone_Live, Protools, DigitalPerformer, Logic,CakeWalk.Sonar)

I have attached a couple of pics, to summarize and give a view re

DAW/Sampler support matrix


ref pic of Desktop OS Market share : https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/

Of course this is not gospel, and the metrics and results will vary, depending on may factors,
I tend to agree with the Desktop OS market share metrics, that WIN7-64bit has in excess of 40% share.

…Maybe we need to setup a page in this forum, to take a poll, survey as to what Windows OS version users are running.

/Stef

This is a very important point.

Seeing as there are companies that purely function on creating content for Kontakt, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that this is Steinberg’s hope for Halion. I personally have an idea or 2 for “niche” instruments to create for Halion, but now my potential user base is being severely limited.

I think I was being too subtle with my previous statement of Steinberg being short sighted.

I’ve just installed HALion 6 under Windows 7 64bit and I must admit not to have read the requirements stating that Windows 7 was not supported. I have not done extensive testing yet but HALion 6 and Sonic 3 appear to be working fine in my REAPER recording setup. I am surprised thst Steinberg have not included Windows 7 as their minimum requirement bearing in mind the obvious market share of this operating system. Let’s face it we all have to ensure that our complex hardware and software installations operate OK which is never a straightforward process. Speaking personally to upgrade to Windows 10 for my recording system would be a major upheaval since I still use FireWire for my audio recording which is not fully supported under Windows 10. Anyway let’s all hope that HALion 6 (which looks very promising by the way) will operate fine with Windows 7.

Are you sure? Isn’t that up to the specific hardware developer to update drivers to be compatible with Win10?

Anyone who suggests that all we have to do is upgrade to Win10 obviously hasn’t run into the difficulties some of us have experienced when Microsoft began to upgrade us automatically a little over a year and a half ago.

I figured that it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot, since at the time it was a freebie. At first it wasn’t too bad, but once the Anniversary update was installed, that’s when my system began to treat me to frequent and random BSODs, sometimes before I had a chance to save my work. It claimed that my memory was “corrupt”, yet even when I replaced that memory and the diagnostic gave it a clean bill of health, I couldn’t go but a few minutes before another BSOD would appear. That was the last straw.

What was worse is that Microsoft decided, without any fanfare, that users had 10 days to keep or revert back to their previous OS - by the time I decided that Win10 was a dog, it was too late for such a reversion. I knew I would hate to do what had to be done: format the drive and reload Win7, as well as all of the associated software, which was a royal pain.

With tens of thousands of instruments made available to me by Steinberg, as well as by other third-party suppliers, I’m thinking this is where I’ll save my money for once.

Well, I’ve tried now 3 times to install and get running H6 on W7-64.

H6 hangs/dissapears after initialisation. HS3 also hangs/dissapears.

With no support I guess that’s me done.



NOW WORKING! - with the help of Matthias!

Thanks for the warning!

Windows 8 and 10 are no option.

=> Waiting for Supported Win7 (or in distant future: Linux - that would be a dream!)

@Steinberg: Such a great release with scripting and macro pages - dont ruin your success with forcing us to use win8/10 - i wont. And anybody who has read a bit about Microsofts new behavior on data privacy will never even consider the new version. You are not even allowed to install the normal versions of Win10 for your employees here, because microsoft will send out too much private information about them.

Someone started a poll: Would you like to have Windows 7 again as supported OS for H - HALion - Steinberg Forums