It’s not in order alphabetically/numerically, nor even how things are listed in MIDI Port Setup? Seems entirely random.
bump as I posted this late night/early morning
I have an external app which scans midi devices and their ports. It scans the devices the way exposed by the OS. So what you see in the left zone, is most probably the ports as scanned, while in the MIDI Port Setup window, they get sorted by name. I guess this could happen in the left zone too, or even have there the port name column sortable.
That’s what I figured…
@Psychlist1972 maybe knows more?
edit
WinRT MIDI is causing a major lockup when soloing tracks sometimes,
so using WinRT MIDI, at least for me, definitely is not a solution after all
This seems to be sorted after a.) getting onboard with new Windows MIDI services, and or b.) Activating WinRT MIDI.
Looks to me like the MIDI Port Setup window is sorted by Cubase. If you look at the names, it sorts A-Z, just as m.c has said.
Also as m.c said, ports are scanned from devices in the order they are presented to the service.
That usually makes sense, but not always. As you add/remove devices, we have to compact the list (apps don’t like having port numbers with nothing there). Here’s an example of ports as-scanned.
And a sorted list of endpoints/devices (each of which can have multiple mapped MIDI 1 ports)
Pete
Microsoft
Given you have Windows MIDI Services, the names should be identical between WinRT MIDI and “Windows MIDI”
But if it fixes things, I won’t complain 
Pete
Microsoft
Did you knock on wood? 
/side note anyone reading this thread - WinRT might not be the greatest solution after all.
Just to provide an update on this problem - the out of order names,
I tried deleting the entire Cubase 15_64 AppData folder, and let Cubase rebuild it from scratch (no transfer from previous Cubase version)
And the port names on the channel Input/Out menu are still out of order.
edit
Also, the act of enabling/disabling WinRT MIDI can cause some port name / assignment weirdness when it comes to opening projects that had ports assigned with WinRT MIDI enabled:
after disabling WinRT and loading project back up:
Additionally, one thing I noticed when enabling/disabling ‘Use Device WinRT MIDI’,
is that it changes the organization from Ins and Outs with WinRT MIDI off, to organized by devices with their ins/outs grouped together.
Also, switching WinRT MIDI on/off, resets ‘Show As’ names.
I replied about the reasons for the sorting in the other thread that contains this info.
Pete
Microsoft
( link to above mentioned reply: CRITICAL Total-Lockup-Freeze, caused by 'Use Device WinRT MIDI' (Cubase 15.0.1) - #28 by Psychlist1972 )