M-Audio midi controllers and my rage

I'd say recently, but that's just not true. A few months ago I picked up my second M-Audio midi controller. Round one was the Oxygen 49 several years ago. I was familiar with the very strict rule of "thou shalt installith ALL software/drivers before thine plugs hardware into ones computering machine," and was very careful to follow all directions thoroughly and to the letter. Still, something happened and Lappy Tappy would not recognize any signals. Back it went.


[M-Audio Oxygen 49]


As a side note, I work in a pretty techy sort of industry. For a period of time I was installing and managing advanced relational database systems with no problem. I know how to perform geographically weighted regression, use agent based modeling to predict land use change; however, I cannot get a simple USB device to work properly. I can't imagine why Alesis, M-Audio, etc. all continue to provide such shitty, fakucta, and just terrible software support for great pieces of hardware.

Anyway, I picked up my second M-Audio device: the Axiom 25. I figured that it was different enough from the Oxygen so that any remaining drivers/keys left in my registry would not interfere with the operation of this. (Also, these companies are terrible about leaving their grubby cheeto hands all over my computer. An uninstall should NOT leave registry keys for me to trip over later)


[M-Audio Axiom 25]
Of course a fresh install of the most recent drivers, downloaded directly from the M-Audio site did not work. I set this rather rad looking unit to the side and concentrated on school like a good kid.

The problem is that after installing the keyboard, Windows claims that "New hardware is ready to use." Subsequent connections, however claim that a "New" audio device is found. This shouldn't be new...

Also, Fruity Loops, Acid, Reason, Ableton, Midi-Ox, etc. do not recognize any input device as being present. Here's the trick:

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• Install the updated drivers from the M-Audio web site
  
• Plug in and turn on the keyboard
  
• Open the Device Manager
  - Right click on My Computer and choose Properties
  - Choose the Hardware tab
  - Click the Device Manager button
• Expand "Sound, video and game controllers"
  
• Right click on the generic USB Audio Device, and choose Properties
• Select the Driver tab
• Click Update Driver
• Choose "No, not at this time" to let Windows fix it and click Next
• Choose "Install from a list or specific location" and click Next
• Choose "Don't Search. I will choose the driver to install." and click Next
• A) In the Model box, choose "Axiom 25 USB" Driver if it is available
• B) Choose "Have Disk"
  - Choose Browse
  - Navigate to the location of the downloaded driver, i.e. C:\Program Files\M-Audio\M-Audio Series II MIDI
• A second driver should attempt to update itself. Repeat the previous few steps for the "Axiom 25 USB MIDI Driver" as well.
  

This worked for me. The device appeared in all MIDI controlling software packages.

Thanks to rorschach76 @ http://forums.m-audio.com/showthread.php?t=334 for the method