Will A Nucleus solve my Windows 10 Issues?

Every time Windows sends my an update, either my RoonServer, running on a Windows 10 PC or my remote running on an Android tablet stops working.

I want to order a Nucleus and take Windows out of the equation. I have a question regarding what happens with my lifetime Roon license I bought? I shouldn’t need the 1 year license since I have a lifetime license. I have Qobuz and approx. 18,000 192/24K music tracks on a 6TB USB with an 8TB USB drive for backup connected to my Windows PC. I also, have a 4TB NAS drive for additional backup.

I’m ready to order today as my frustration level with Windows upgrades breaking Roon is getting to be too much. All I need is for the above questions to be answered;. I tried sending similar questions to the Support email and didn’t get a response.

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Roon OS (ROCK or Nucleus) should be a more stable operating system.
There are guides in the roon knowledge base for server migration.
Your license is not tied to any hardware.

@John_Lee2 I did exactly what you are talking about and it worked out perfectly. Only difference is that I bought an actual NUC and installed ROCK on it.
If you can afford the Nucleus then go for it, I am sure it will be as big an improvement for you as it was for me.

Hopefully you can use the Windows machine to host a second backup just to keep all your metadata and history backed up safety.

Good luck
Mike

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What Windows issues ? :heart_eyes:

I have a bog standard PC Tower running Window 10 Home set up to do auto updates and I see absolutely no issues with Roon or any other software for that matter. My PC has 1 x SSD and 4 x HDD , running on a fairly standard Asus motherboard (its a gaming version to provide enough ports for all the drives., It has Intel built in graphics so no extra cards etc . Its as bog standard as they come . i7 7700, 16GB RAM that’s it. It was my Dev machine (now retired) and runs SQL Server in the background . I also run JRiver Media Server for my video needs.

For weather reasons (lightning) I shutdown every night in the summer , whether that makes any difference I don’t know. To me it just works , bit noisy at times but it well away from any listening area.

Maybe sound cards, or other boards, odd software, AV Software , Firewalls etc make a difference but I read daily of people having all sorts of issues with Roon & Windows and I wonder what they are doing to get into the messes they report

I set this machine up 3 years ago and since then I have had zero problems with it . Maybe I’m just lucky.

There is little doubt that a NUC would be a nice simple “appliance” approach but without being rude you seem to be throwing money at a problem that ought to be soluble by other means. I must admit when this PC eventually dies I will probably go the NUC route for space reasons more than anything else but as I need a DLNA server for Video as well as JRiver Audio I would still choose Windows.

I started on Windows 3.1 and have had every incarnation, even Millennium, I am (was) a certified MS developer so I guess I am a little biased towards Windows but I can’t see what all the “Apple Fuss” is about.

Just my 2p !! No Offence meant. :smiley:

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You know what you are doing though.
Look at the number of support threads for Windows update hid my cheese, lots of people don’t know what they are doing and are unable to trace faults when something untoward happens.
Pah windows 3.1 that’s new stuff. Windows 1 was where I came in. Windows on DOS.

I think that of forum-goers, many if not most would benefit from an appliance. MSFT certification is a step beyond what the median (or even 90th %ile) Roon license-holder has or is interested in. Per @ged_hickman1 above, I perceive a lot of people doing a lot of ongoing work that could be effectively treated as a “managed service” (not quite, there are still potential issues, but many less) if folks got Nucleus / ROCK, and I think that at many people here’s cost of time it would be a good trade. I like some amount of up-front tinkering myself, and I’ve built Raspberry Pi’s, installed linux on old machines, burnt flash cards etc before, so the ROCK was the right call for me. But there are other ways to trade off time/money/simplicity. I respect folks who have gotten ROCK running on a cast-off machine, or who are running it on Windows - but that particular juice is not worth the squeeze for me. I suspect the OP here would be better served by ROCK or NUCLEUS given what they’ve written, but I’m trying to suss out whether @John_Lee2 has the patience / belief in capabilities to take on a NUC, and the price insensitivity to add one more piece of hardware.

There is no downside to purchasing a Nucleus.

No downside… Except the price. But I 100% agree broadly with what you say. We all value our money, time, complexity/simplicity, joy of tinkering, etc differently.

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The OP had a really simple question. If he buys a Roon Nucleus that comes with one year of Roon for free, what happens to that since he has a paid lifetime subscription?

I ordered the Roon Nucleus last night. Now, I have to get my current Roon Core (lifetime license) on my Windows 10 PC working so the Roon Nucleus when it arrives can find the Core. My Roon Core not working after a Windows Upgrade is to the point of being like death and taxes.

I’m not sure that is necessary. You will need a back up of your current core. Hopefully, you have that on a USB drive, etc. Your Nucleus will come with the Roon core software already installed. You will simply crank up the Nucleus and deauthorize the old core and authorize the new core. Then, you will do a restore from your backup to the Nucleus to replicate your Roon library on the Nucleus. You will also need to copy your music files from somewhere to your SSD that you install in the Nucleus for the purpose of storing your music. Finally, you’ll need to make that your “watched” folder. Of course, if your music files are on a NAS or somewhere such as that, you can make that the “watched” folder.

As @Jim_F says, you should do the migration differently. Please read this guide…

I am well into my third year of ownership. So far, the only problems I have encountered have turned out to be user error. That, to me, is a value proposition. I can see the lure of DIY, including initial cost. But I am smart enough to not do plumbing either.

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I recently migrated from running Roon on a windows 10 Skull Canyon NUC to a nucleus plus. One of the main drivers for this is exactly what the original poster mentioned… every windows update seemed to break something. Sometimes even a pending update seemed to break something. Not breaking Roon per se, but breaking the capability for this machine to serve music.

I could not be happier with this decision. I work with computers all day as an IT professional. It is so great not to have to futz with my music anymore in that way. Nucleus is an appliance in the best sense of the word. I can spend my time enjoying music instead of trying to figure out why my system isn’t working.

I’d encourage anyone who is considering it to pull the trigger.

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I was finally able to get my Roon Core working on my Win10 PC by rolling back two windows 10 updates.

I’m freezing all Windows updates for seven days and hopefully, my Roon Nucleus will arrive. As a test I was able to install my Roon Core on a 10 year old PC that has all the Windows 10 Updates with no problem.

My current machine is only one year old. I had even done a Win 10 operating system restore to get the Core to come up on my new machine from earlier problems. The latest issue started about 11/14. I successfully got the core back up by rolling back a 12/10, 12/9 Update.

Clean with wire wool, add flux Point solder heat :crazy_face::crazy_face::crazy_face:

Geometric pleasing

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That counts as serious twiddling , how many average users would even know where to start rolling back updates. It would take me a while to figure it

Have you updated graphics drivers ?

Nucleus sounds like a good bet , in South Africa I could get a small car for what they are charging for a N + …life tough in Africa :face_with_monocle:

I am a techno - amateur but soon realised that I needed more grunt than what I had from my laptop so bought a tower with Windows 10 home i5, 16 GB Ram and a good sized SSD. My music is on an external HDD directly connected to this machine which is connected directly to my modem. It is located away from my main listening room. I have a library of 120,000 tracks (nearly all classical - close to 4TB of music).

I do not switch my Roon PC off - so Windows updates can cause an occasional problem, which is easily rectified by checking for softwares updates and restarting if needed. I think that as you power your machine off every night, you avoid the occasional problem that I have had.

The biggest pain is that I load my music to the HDD on my Roon machine using my wifi network. Occasionally an update will change the network settings - but I have now worked out how to resolve this.

Sounds very similar to mine , my wife and I both have Tower PC but in a closed off study. They sound like tractors occasionally but on the whole quiet but miles away from a listening spot

My collection is much the same size but 60 40 Classical rock etc

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