Mixcraft won't start or freezes after a Windows 11 update

Microsoft has released updates for Windows 11 that cause some old USB MIDI or audio/MIDI devices to hang Mixcraft.   The updates add support for enhanced MIDI 1.0 to Windows 11 and pave the way for MIDI 2.0.  (February and March 2026.) 

 

We're seeing this problem with old M-Audio products, Avid MBox, Midiman, and a few others.  Microsoft is working on a fix that is available on their Discord server, and they hope to release it in May.  (As of this post on April 8, 2026.)

We have created a small utility program that can disable and enable MIDI devices for Mixcraft:

1. Quit Mixcraft if it is running.

2. Download EnableOrDisableMixcraftMIDI.exe from the following link and run it: https://download.acoustica.com/EnableOrDisableMixcraftMIDI.exe

3. Choose to disable all MIDI devices.  (This only affects Mixcraft.)

4. See if you can run Mixcraft successfully.

5. You can then go into Mixcraft's MIDI preferences, or run the utility again to enable MIDI devices to see which one has the problem.

Note: this problem also affects USB audio interfaces that include a MIDI connection, not just pure MIDI devices.

Here's a Microsoft page with some of the problems people have run into, along with possible workarounds: 

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windows-music-dev/windows-midi-services-rollout-known-issues-and-workarounds/