There are several cases where a Windows user may transport a laptop from one location to another whereby Waves is installed on the C: drive.
Example: at the first location, the end user has of course say local Drive C: and D: and also has a mapped Network drive Z: which connects to a server, other computer or possibly a NAS drive as in my case.
The user then goes to location #2 and there’s no drive letter Z however the Mapping still exists on the laptop within Windows.
This is where Waves can take an exceedingly long time to load with Studio One, Reaper or Reason 12 with a simple drag and drop of any Waves plugin (avg 30-60 seconds). In my case (and this has been fully tested), I have two NAS drives mapped as drive letters L and M.
L is only used when a backup is run. It is then powered down however the mapping in Windows Explorer remains constant. I simply power up L, then run the backup then power down L.
After 30 days of watching Waves Plugins load between 30-60 seconds, today I left the L drive powered up and it was a night and day difference. 30-60 second load time interval turned into 1 second. This occurrence doesn’t happen with any other plugin I have installed such as East West Opus, Kontakt and others.
There are several ways to hide the drive letter such as with a Registry entry, but perhaps the simplest is right clicking and choose “Disconnect”. It can easily be remapped just take note of the mapping such as \server\share_name. Remap the drive letter when needed. Additionally, this also solved Studio One from locking up when a Waves plugin was in use and the network Mapping was unavailable.
If you have Mapped Network drives and they are unplugged, powered down, at a different location or no longer in use, be sure and disconnect those drives via Windows Explorer and Waves will behave normally. This instance was reported to Waves support in Tel Aviv today. Hope this helps someone.