New to Pro Tools... AND...

[mlbar3625]

I found my son's MBox 2 and copy of Pro Tools LE 7 (Version 7.0) He bought it 3 or 4 years ago but never used it. He attempted the install (on a Mac) once and failed and it's been in the box ever since. I now have a PC with Windows 7. Does anyone know if its possible to install and use these? Is there an MBox 2 driver available for me? Can I use the software without the MBox?

[5454stevef]

Last question first - the software only runs in conjunction with Avid/Digidesign hardware, you have to use the Mbox with it.

PT LE 7 does not run on Windows 7; in order to run PT LE on W7 you would need PT LE 8.0.5.

I installed it recently on a new Windows 7 box and was able to download the update from 8.0 to 8.0.5 for free because I already had purchased a PT 8 license that I've run for a couple years on an older machine.

The upgrade from PT 7 to PT 8 is not free, though, it's $150 if I'm not mistaken; what you would do is purchase the upgrade, install it (it's a stand-alone application, no previous installation of the sofware is required, in fact, you have to uninstall previous versions before you install it), then install the 8.0.5 update, which you can download for free if you own PT 8.

Or you could cross-grade to PT 9, which will run on other interfaces and supports a lot more tracks, for $250.

In order to do any of this, you'd have to be able to access your son's Avid/Digi account on the Avid web site.

With respect to drivers, I had a Mbox 2 Mini that I gave to my daughter, she is running Reaper with it under some ASIO freeware driver or another, but I can't quote chapter and verse on it. Might be ASIO4ALL or something, can't say for sure. I don't know what OS she is running it on, or if it can be made to work on Windows 7. It would be worth looking into though.

SF