This may have been mentioned elsewhere in this thread but in case it wasn't, I think this may address some of the midi issues some of you have had and/or be of some use to you. It may not. I used the Korg utility and removed a bunch of unused entries, removed the Korg app, rebooted, and then installed:

Windows MIDI and Musician Settings PREVIEW app

You can install it with winget:
winget install Microsoft.WindowsMIDIServicesSDK

Or download it from here:
https://github.com/microsoft/MIDI/releases/tag/network-midi-spring-2026

You should also read the Instructions section here:
https://github.com/microsoft/MIDI/releases

It's nice to see something like this being developed and have a central applet to manage midi that is somewhat modern

It shows up in search as Midi Settings

Obviously don't install it if you are worried it will break your setup, but for many it'll be fine

Gemini offered this about it:
Important Requirements

Windows 11: The new MIDI Services stack is built specifically for Windows 11. It is generally not available for Windows 10.

Developer Mode: For some preview versions, you may need to enable Developer Mode in your Windows Settings (Settings > System > For developers).

Windows Update: Ensure your system is up to date. The core "plumbing" for MIDI 2.0 is often delivered via Windows Update (KB5074105 or similar), while the Settings App is the "UI" you install separately using the steps above.

What’s inside the app?

Once installed, the MIDI and Musician Settings app allows you to:

Create Virtual Loopback Ports: Send MIDI from one app to another without third-party tools like loopMIDI.

Rename Devices: Finally give your USB controllers friendly names that stick.

Manage MIDI 2.0: Configure high-resolution MIDI 2.0 features for compatible hardware.

 

Last edited: Apr 18, 2026 at 1:00 AM

Also, open source.

 

...anyway if, as MS claimed, will be "shipped with Windows" users will not need for OEM drivers and those will - pretty probably - stop to develop further to shrink costs.

 

Yeah, agree on that - for the lower end of the market anyway.

Disagree. That's like saying "once MS writes a generic graphics card driver, there's no point anymore in Nvidia or AMD writing their own". Drivers will continue to have to be tailored for that particular piece of hardware to take advantage of it.

Look at how 30 years later Linux/BSD/Android still have to rely on binary blobs for decent performance for most hardware..

 

As I said before those of us who use higher end audio hardware like RMEaudio will most likely not be using that ms stuff in the future unless RME revamps all their stuff to use the ms junk. The tie-in with totalmix probably wouldn't work as slick like it does now without a complete revamp. Even so, RME is pretty decent about keeping legacy stuff up to date so they'll have to pry my OEM drivers from my cold dead hands. Personally I could care less anyway since I'll be running win10 until it's becomes imperative that a rebuild is in order to a higher version. TO give an idea how long that will be - I just recently only went to win10 from win7 due to a limitation of 7 that couldn't be kludged. This ms audio stuff is no where near enough motivation to have to endure a move to win11. The current rigs all work perfectly and there's no reason to muck with any of them.

 

Last edited: Apr 18, 2026 at 8:48 PM