Hello everyone,
I am currently working with Cubase 15 on my workstation running Windows 11 23H2.
Since this Windows 11 release will no longer receive updates in the near future, I am considering upgrading to Windows 11 25H2.
Before doing so, I would like to ask if anyone has experience with Cubase 15 on Windows 11 25H2 and whether you have encountered any issues or compatibility problems.
Thank you in advance for your feedback.
Win11 25H2 working perfectly here.
Many thanks
No problems here
Win11 pro 25H2 working perfectly here.
No specific problems with W11 Pro 25H2 on my machines.
No issues at all here. Also moved to Windows MIDI 2.0 stack quite some time ago. All fine.
I am running Windows 11 Pro 25H2 on one machine and Windows 11 Home 25H2 on another. No problems at all with Cubase 15 or Dorico 6.
Fine here; on my laptop.
(My studio desktop on win 10 also still works fine. 
)
Please, may I ask a few ?s
My Windows 10 with Cubase 13 Pro worked beautifully. Since I upgraded to Cubase 15 Pro, the Media Manager is debilitatingly slow, full of errors and refuses to show VST library icons. I added the drive/directory in the “path” statement in my startup file. My Windows 11 Cubase experience is good with that and consolidating all the VST libraries to one specific drive directory area. I have redownloaded and reinstalled everything I can think to do.
So, do you keep all your VST libraries in a certain spot? Does this sound familiar at all with your experiences?
Appreciation
Hi,
I keep all Steinberg vstsound files in one folder. This way, I can easily double click on one file and the library manager will rescan all files in that directory for me.
If you already got all your files in one place try to doubleclick and see if the Library Manger recognizes all files correctly.
You can also try to run a Mediabay repair function:
Download the latest Media Bay separatly, unzip and run the *msi. Now, go for the repair option. Does this help? You can also try to delete the *db as a last resort.
I truly appreciate those tips.
Seems to be working fine for me…not that I don’t have issues, but I can’t tell if it’s windows or cubase, or plugin half the time when it crashes. I think no matter which version there is always going to be issues. In time we work it out. The new MIDI thing sure has simplified things, but also caused issues. Not sure if that is tied directly to 25H2, but it’s rolling.
Just use factory plugins, don’t use ARA2, and you should be fine 
There are a lot of factors affecting if Windows 11 25H2 will cause problems. For those “not impacted” have you actually checked if 25H2 has been pushed to your PC yet? I got lucky and I was withing the 12 day trial period and was allowed to uninstall, but I’ll still have to vigilantly watch to see how long left before I need to pause updates again. You can’t turn in off permanently, at least from what I’ve seen.
There are tons of vendors with different MIDI drivers, so everyone will see differences in how well things still work. I’m happy for those who were not impacted, but can feel the pain of those who have been affected. Sadly, I’m in the latter group.
Also, it might make a bit of a difference depending on the type of CPU you have; obviously the more expensive the CPU, usually the better quality of the silicon and processes they used in making the CPUs; hence, not as many issues.
I opted to rollback to the previous version 24H2. After that my NI S88 MK3 was able to connect using the DAW button after I reinstalled the Hardware Connection Service. Yes, I tried reinstalling it before rolling back.
Unfortunately, my Softube Fader Mk3 is only partially working even after several reinstalls of the Software Central and the OSD and I even updated the firmware. The page left/right button still doesn’t work. Another problem was related to Cubase group channels; after I got rid of them the faders all initialize to the correct Db level. So, I still want to use them, but the Softube fader doesn’t seem very reliable at this point. Okay, I discovered if you ‘select’ the fader it will make Cubase scroll; I don’t recall needing to do this before, but I guess it makes sense.
As a result, I’m planning on switch to using Mac Mini with 48 GB RAM as quickly as possible. MIDI is so much better on a Mac.
FWIW, 24h2, 25h2, and 26h1 all have the same MIDI stack, as of January this year. So, given you were unable to stop updates, you have Windows MIDI Services on both the 24h2 and 25h2 installs, and so the same reinstall fix should have worked on 25h2 if it worked on 24h2.
The Softube fader sounds like something unrelated. However, if you want to join the MIDI Discord Windows MIDI / Audio I can point you to instructions for taking a trace to help id the problem, if you are interested.
We also introduced last month, for those who are up to date with updates, a new switch to revert to the old MIDI stack if you have a driver or app which is just not compatible. This is primarily for folks using inMusic dj equipment as their driver has a bug that isn’t going away, at least not for older equipment.
It takes up to 30 days to roll that out to everyone who is up to date. It’s currently a registry entry but will be added to the MIDI Settings app.
Yes, you can completely disable updates if you want/need. I wrote a blog post showing how some years ago.
Pete
Microsoft
Thanks Pete. Everyone kept saying that I was just 25H2. Thank you for setting the record straight.
Btw, I realized you have to select a channel fader on the Softube device to get Cubase to scroll to that fader.
The only other thing I thought was a problem is that I discovered through trial and error that you have to wait for Cubase to finish loading your project before opening the OSD for the Softube Fader Mk3; otherwise, you end up with a few faders not at their correct level to match Cubase. At least that’s true for my older, slower computer. It’s an i9 but being Intel they are generally slower than AMD and especially Apple.
So, I’ve created two commands for my StreamDeck, one to open the OSD app and the other to close it.
Pete, here’s what I’ve done troubleshooting wise and still can’t get SideshowFX working… Any thoughts?
I found a video for installing SideshowFX and did everything EXACTLY the way he said and it’s not working. In the MIDI Remote Manager it says it’s disconnected.
Update: I went back and double-checked the ports it assigned for the script and they are wrong. So, I deleted the script and the surface, re-imported the script and for some reason it’s assigning the following automatically as the ports:
Default App Loopback (A)
Default App Loopback (A)
What am I doing wrong? loopMIDI is open and running with the correct ports created. Does loopMIDI have to run in Administrator mode?
I tried disabling the new ‘Windows MIDI Services’, deleted the surface/script, closed Cubase, re-opened Cubase, reinstalled the script but Windows or Cubase absolutely refuses to show the ports that are in loopMIDI and it continues to assign the incorrect ports above.
Okay, in MIDI Port Setup, the ‘Port System Name’ for the ports look like this, which is what I assume is causing the problem, but how do I fix this?
I discovered the incorrectly named ports were hiding in ‘Software Devices’ under Device Manager. Not where I would have thought to look first. Just removed them… Wish me luck.
I just discovered the ports are also cached in ‘Port Setup.xml’ inside your ‘Cubase 15_64’ folder. Had to delete them there too. I searched the registry as well and they didn’t show up in my search.
I stopped Windows MIDI Services again and re-opened Cubase and the #!?# incorrectly named ports are showing back up again! Does anyone know how to resolve this?
Somehow I finally got the ports looking like this for the surface, but still not working, probably because the MidiKeys ports are still incorrectly named.
Since no one is responding, I’ve emailed support at SideshowFX directly.
Update: I went back to the PDF explicitly for Cubase 15 and it says to create MIDI 1.0 Loopback Endpoints. In the picture they show, it does have that option, but in my copy of MIDI Settings it only offers to create MIDI 2.0 Loopback Endpoint pairs. So, it appears the PDF instructions are out-of-date and I can’t proceed with the SideshowFX install.
At this time, you need to install the Windows MIDI SDK to be able to add 1.0 Endpoints.
Pete may wish to elaborate but tbh it is pretty straight fwd.
