Thinking of Trialing TI Home 2010 for Win7-64 bit

Hi, I am a Windows 7 user, and a longtime user of Acronis True Image and Disk Director.  Until recently, I used to use TI Home 11 under Vista.  I recently migrated to Windows 7 64 bit and I'm now thinking about upgrading my TI license to TIH 2010.

I have have been hesitant due to the issues I've read about on this forum.  More on that in my questions later.  First things first; here are my system specs:

Intel Quad Core Q6600 CPU
Asus PK4C motherboard w/8 GB RAM
One WD 1.5 TB hard drive set up in dual boot Win7 for programs and data
Two WD 1.5 TB hard drives for backups
Removable SATA drive bay with slide-out caddy-enclosures for drives  (all internal SATA)
Windows 7 - 64 Bit SP1.  This is running in multiboot on two partitions.

My CPU and motherboard are over three years old, but my system runs Windows 7 just fine, even on the CPU and memory intensive DAW side (more below).  My dual boot configuration is as follows:

1st Primary partition - Windows 7 64 bit:  Office and gaming OS; this is where I do most of my email, office, web design, and gaming activities.  This OS instance can see all drive partitions, but it does not have any components installed on any of the music/DAW partitions.  This is the partition that also runs Diskeeper 2010.  I use Windows Firewall and Microsoft Security Essentials for this OS instance.  This is the environment where I plan to install TI.

2nd Primary partition - Windows 7 64 bit:  Digital Audio Workstation; I have a couple of DAW applications installed, as well as most of my music-based virtual instruments.  This OS can see all drive partitions, but it does not have any components installed on any of the office partitions.  I also use Windows Firewall and Microsoft Security Essentials on this instance.  I do not run Diskeeper in this environment, nor do I plan to install TI on this image (not right away, anyhow).

For reasons having to do with efficiency for defragging and backups, I have separated my partitions by capacity and purpose.

Here is a rough picture of my hard drive's partitions.  The drive letters shown here may or may not be the "actual" drive letters in my system; I'm typing this from a different sytem at the moment and cannot verify this info...so the drive letters here are just for visual purposes.

C:  Office OS and gaming (OS)
D:  Music production DAW (OS)

My swap files are on their own partitions to make defrages of my system drives easier and faster.  The swap partitions are never backed up (except when cloning the drive) nor are they defragged; there's just no reason for it.

E:  Swap for Office and gaming
F:  Swap for DAW

G:  Office and gaming application partition.
H:  DAW application partition.
I:  DAW virtual instrument sound samples.  Lots of WAV files and massive (multi-gig) library files.  This partition rarely changes but is close to a terabyte now.
J:  DATA - Office (this is where my downloaded files and office data files are stored; can be updated every day)
K:  DATA - DAW (this is where my recorded works go; when I am being creative, this changes every day)
L:  DATA - MP3 library (about 60 GB; doesn't change much)

At first, I am planning to install TIH-2010 to the C partition shown above, and backups will be automated.  Some partitions will be imaged more often (such as DAW data, office data, and the OS partitions), and others will be backed up less often because they almost never change (such as the virtual instrument sample partition, the application partitions, and the MP3 data partition).

I figure with this plan I can get warm backups of C, E, G, J, and L, and cold backups of everything else (assuming that I take my backups while DISKEEPER is not running, which is what I plan to do).

As noted in my system specs above, I have two 1.5 TB drives that I can use for backups.  Eventually, I'll pick up another drive for backups, but for the time being, I plan to use one of those drives for TI backups, and the other drive to maintain a "mostly monthly" Disk Director "clone" disk made via the Disk Director 11 (yes, I am planning to upgrade to DD11) boot disc.  Tentatively, I plan to alternate my "clones", so that once I copy the current system's partitions, I'll put that old one on the shelf and use the new one until it's time to make another cold copy, at which time I will resort back to using the first hard drive.

The TI backups will be automated so that they'll run periodically during the most likely time of day that the system will be turned on.  I do plan to make use of the versioning mod (plugin?  hack?  tweak?) that I've seen here in the forums; it looks like a very clever piece of work.

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This is a slight divergence, but I thought I'd provide some thoughts here.  You're probably thinking, "Why Multiboot just for a DAW?"    There are numerous reasons for this, but here are my top four:

1.  Office boot is where I do most of my web browsing and office work via MS Office.  DAW is used only for downloading music updates and upgrades, although in case of emergency, I do have Open Office (instead of MS-Office) installed on the DAW side.

2.  Office is where I run AV scans, defrags, and backups.  Those are not executed (some are not even installed) on the DAW side, so this reduces the odds for misbehaving services causing me problems right in the midst of a recording session.

3.  Malfunction of the Office system partition will almost never render the DAW partition inoperative.  As long as the hard drive itself is not malfunctioning, I should be able to boot to the DAW partition where I can accomplish any music tasks and many basic office tasks such as word processing and email. 

4.  Re-installing Windows 7 from scratch is doable in a weekend for the Office partition.  Not at all desirable for the DAW side because that might take 1 to 2 weeks, and would require re-authorization of numerous virtual instrument plugins and re-installation of nearly a terabyte of samples.

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Now I have some questions to run by y'all.  Candid responses are welcome, and even desired here:

Q1 - I've seen an awful lot of problems here in the forum.  Now I've been to this rodeo before and I know that forum sentiment rarely accurately portrays a trend.  But I need to know...are there a lot of people having hair-raising problems (such as not being able to boot their systems)?

Q2 - If I ever decided to install TIH 2010 to both my "C" and "D" partitions above (so that I can ensure "cold" backups of my C partition), is there a licensing issue with this?  In other words, am I permitted to install TIH 2010 to two different partitions on the same hard disk, or would an additional license be required?

Q3 - Are there any known issues with TIH 2010 running in a 64 bit environment?  I did not have any trouble with TIH 11 under Vista 64, but I thought I should ask.

Q4 - I see that some of Grover's threads show some great tools and informational threads out there.  I shall review.  But that will take some time.  In the meantime, what do you think might be the 2 or 3 most common mistakes of some of these folks having problems?

Q5 - Are there any known issues between TIH 2010 and any of the following:

Windows Firewall
Microsoft Security Essentials
Diskeeper 2010
Windows 7 Hibernate/sleep or other power settings
MS Office 2007 or MS Office 2010
Coexisting with gaming software
Memory, CPU, hard drive, swap file, or other weird or wacky issues?

Q6 - Under TI 10 and 11, System State backup was broken.  By that, I mean that it would hang Windows XP or Vista.  Has System State backup been fixed in TIH 2010 for Windows 7?

That's quite enough for now.  My apologies for being so wordy, but answers to these questions may (or may not) alleviate some of my concerns given the tone and tenor of this support forum.  In any event, more info may lend better context for me, and may help me make a better decision. 

Thank you in advance for any information, experiences, or personal observations you can provide.