Why do you like Pro Tools on Windows?

[Dale-c]

I am mostly looking for positive posts here. I started with Pro Tools on Windows 98 over 20 years ago. I quickly moved to an iMac g3 and the original MBox. Over the years I installed PT on Windows a few times but never really used it.

There are still a few things I like better about the Mac but I am really tired of the constant OS updates breaking things.

So how is it with Windows? Can you really run about any version of PT over the past decade on Windows 10? And does driver support stay solid or do Windows updates break stuff?

Also we all know upgrading PCs is so much easier.
Although I have always used Macs for Audio, I have plenty of windows experience from working in IT related fields.

[BScout]

Originally Posted by Dale-c

So how is it with Windows? Can you really run about any version of PT over the past decade on Windows 10? And does driver support stay solid or do Windows updates break stuff?

It is 100% fine. If you like it on Mac, you'll like it on Windows. There are very, very, very few plugins today that aren't both on Windows and Mac. (This used to be a major issue.) But it is more or less the same on both platforms.

I would caution that you have an audio interface on the Windows system that has ASIO drivers. Don't mess about with excuses/work-arounds (like ASIO4ALL.) Get an honest audio interface with ASIO drivers. And, yes, Windows 10 still runs all the latest Pro Tools.

(I do this professionally and have both Mac and Windows systems... so this is rather critical to my livelihood. I will also mention that some of the Avid folks here are on Windows mostly -- so it is adequately tested on both platforms.)

[Darryl Ramm]

A complaint on Windows is about how Edit and Mix windows within a window behavior on Windows but folks get used to it.

My advice is just work on the platform you prefer most.

Pro Tools on Windows can sure have less OS upgrade and compatibility issues than on Macintosh where Apple is forever changing stuff that affects Pro Tools.

Pro Tools on Windows does not have support today for Pro Tools Aux I/O aka "Pro Tools Audio Bridge" virtual audio interface but there are other options that can provide app to app routing of Audio on Windows.

The Dolby Atmos renderer does not run on Windows today, which affects mostly Pro Tools post users, hopefully solved in future releases.

Modern PCs should have NVMe/PCIe SSDs on the motherboard and that gets you much better performance than old hard drives or SATA SSDs. And this storage is so much lower cost (and often upgradeble) compared to Macs. If you want to you can simplify all the storage needs and combine boot, sample, and session storage on a single fast SSDs (as you can on Macs with their fast, but expensive, internal SSDs).

Even though it's maybe got less of an issue than in the past you still should pay attention to systems requirements and maybe ask here for recommendations. The official tested Windows PCs are unfortunately all from HP, and largely a sign of HP wanting to spend marketing dollars funding all the testing. I would personally not buy anything ever from HP, they are a printer ink company, that to sell you subscription to use your own printer they sell you.

There have been issues at times with optimization of Windows PCs where optimizations on some PCs can be more critical than the typical optimizations on Macs. Such as CPU affinity settings. But that's all well documented on DUC. And typically less of an issue if you are only a light user.

If you want a high performance system the monster thread on DUC about building PC system is here: https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=238426 That thread has been going on for so long much of the info is no longer relevant, but if you want a top-end PC system its very worth reading that thread especially if you will build your own Pro Tools PC or have somebody else build one. Folks on that thread are also great at answering Windows PC questions.

As BScout says, the interface is one thing that you want to focus on getting right. You want one from a quality vendor that includes their own ASIO driver. Do not use ASIO4ALL and although WASAPI drivers from some vendors are getting better and Avid says you can use this... don't. You want a interface with native ASIO driver and you should dedicate this to Pro Tools and let all other apps and Windows audio itself use the PCs motherboard sound or soundcard for audio. Even if an interface vendor claims there ASIO driver is multi-client just don't rely on it and keep stuff separate. (I've been able to share stuff well with RME interfaces and their great ASIO drivers, but I would never set up a PC that was this way always, give Pro Tools on Windows a dedicated ASIO device).

[Dale-c]

A complaint on Windows is about how Edit and Mix windows within a window behavior on Windows but folks get used to it.

To be honest, that is the #1 reason I always spend 5 minutes on windows and don't go back. I have installed Pro Tools on windows many times and just can't stand the captive edit and mix windows.

What is crazy though is that you can get a full decade of later PCs than macs that are compatible with some older interfaces. And the fact that I don't make money on this, I like to buy older gear when it gets cheap. Although I have discovered that devices that have discontinued drivers can be a great value.

Just yesterday I was looking at Preamps on eBay and ended up buying an Mbox 3 pro for $41. Of course it has no more Mac driver support but sounds like windows is still an option.

[Dale-c]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

A complaint on Windows is about how Edit and Mix windows within a window behavior on Windows but folks get used to it.

My advice is just work on the platform you prefer most.

Pro Tools on Windows can sure have less OS upgrade and compatibility issues than on Macintosh where Apple is forever changing stuff that affects Pro Tools.

Pro Tools on Windows does not have support today for Pro Tools Aux I/O aka "Pro Tools Audio Bridge" virtual audio interface but there are other options that can provide app to app routing of Audio on Windows.

The Dolby Atmos renderer does not run on Windows today, which affects mostly Pro Tools post users, hopefully solved in future releases.

Modern PCs should have NVMe/PCIe SSDs on the motherboard and that gets you much better performance than old hard drives or SATA SSDs. And this storage is so much lower cost (and often upgradeble) compared to Macs. If you want to you can simplify all the storage needs and combine boot, sample, and session storage on a single fast SSDs (as you can on Macs with their fast, but expensive, internal SSDs).

Even though it's maybe got less of an issue than in the past you still should pay attention to systems requirements and maybe ask here for recommendations. The official tested Windows PCs are unfortunately all from HP, and largely a sign of HP wanting to spend marketing dollars funding all the testing. I would personally not buy anything ever from HP, they are a printer ink company, that to sell you subscription to use your own printer they sell you.

There have been issues at times with optimization of Windows PCs where optimizations on some PCs can be more critical than the typical optimizations on Macs. Such as CPU affinity settings. But that's all well documented on DUC. And typically less of an issue if you are only a light user.

If you want a high performance system the monster thread on DUC about building PC system is here: https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=238426 That thread has been going on for so long much of the info is no longer relevant, but if you want a top-end PC system its very worth reading that thread especially if you will build your own Pro Tools PC or have somebody else build one. Folks on that thread are also great at answering Windows PC questions.

As BScout says, the interface is one thing that you want to focus on getting right. You want one from a quality vendor that includes their own ASIO driver. Do not use ASIO4ALL and although WASAPI drivers from some vendors are getting better and Avid says you can use this... don't. You want an interface with native ASIO driver and you should dedicate this to Pro Tools and let all other apps and Windows audio itself use the PCs motherboard sound or soundcard for audio. Even if an interface vendor claims their ASIO driver is multi-client just don't rely on it and keep stuff separate. (I've been able to share stuff well with RME interfaces and their great ASIO drivers, but I would never set up a PC that was this way always, give Pro Tools on Windows a dedicated ASIO device).

I am very comfortable building PCs, done it many times. I setup an older Dell Optiplex a while back and had no issues with a quad core i5, 16 GB etc. When drivers work properly, I do prefer the Mac way.

Ultimately I think I am deciding to just stick in time for now. Stay with Mojave or older. My sessions are usually under 16 tracks. A USB3 SSD has been more than enough for what I need. But what I love about Pro Tools, is that I don't have to commit to one or the other. I can easily setup a second PC system and just move my iLok over and use both.

What I haven't figured out yet is a way to use the same USB drive on both systems.

[junkgear]

Stability on Windows has been really good for a while now. MacOS is going through what Windows went through years ago, with constantly changing frameworks and parts of the core OS changing to meet the needs of mainstream use. The driver model on Windows hasn't changed in years, so driver stability, at least with the major brands is very good these days. Windows updates usually bring new features to the mix, but rarely affect how programs work and I have not had a PT version not run on Windows 11 because of an update. That's not saying things could change, but as of now, Windows has been solid for me.

Mind you, you need a good stable system to start with. Building / buying PCs has gotten a lot better over the years, but you can still build / buy a system that can't handle the basic requirements of Pro Tools or audio production in general. Do your research, choose wisely and things should run fine for you.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Dale-c

What I haven't figured out yet is a way to use the same USB drive on both systems.

How to do this is well understood and much discussed on DUC. If you really need to do this you utilize third party (eg from Paragon) software to provide say NTFS filesystem write support on macOS. But this is just often more complexity and trouble vs just copying a session between each computer which you can do simply over a network or on any external drive or USB thumb drive, typically with an exFAT filesystem which is readable and writable by both macOS and Windows. You can't/don't run the sessions on the exFAT drives, but copy them to the local drive(s).

[EGS]

Windows OS updates are several years apart, so stability is why I choose it over Mac. The occasional Windows "version" updates are little more than security/other minor tweaks; hardware & software compatibility typically do not change. All recent, & many older, Pro Tools versions work on Win 10/11. If the AVID compatibility chart lists a PT release as 64 bit compatible, it'll work on Win 10/11.

I like to self-build my desktop, so Windows for me.

There are +/-'s for Win/Mac. Both work. Neither is perfect. My 2 cents!

[EGS]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

... you can simplify all the storage needs and combine boot, sample, and session storage on a single fast SSDs ...

Yes! My Western Digital 4TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe is awesome. 4TB is enough for me, since my samples library is not that huge. I partitioned the 4TB for organizational convenience: OS/sessions/samples. All older drives are now used as external backups/archives.

[BCnSTL]

On a 4K display PT on Windows looks terrible.
Unless you want super-small or crazy-big UI elements you have to tweak the scaling controls both globally and specifically to PT and, ime, PT ends up looking fuzzy and weird. This is specific to PT as Studio One, Reason etc. all look sharp and quite nice on a large-ish 4K display.

PT performs well on Windows but the ancient and creaky graphical underpinnings are more apparent than ever. 10 years ago I would've bet money that AVID would have addressed this by now. That they haven't speaks to the degree of difficulty involved and/or the limited development resources AVID is willing to devote to the "problem" such as they perceive it.