MIDIMapper

CoolSoft MIDIMapper is the missing (and needed) MIDI Mapper for Windows 8, 10, 11.

It installs as a MIDI Output device and forces itself as MIDI device #0 (read below for an explanation).
It can be managed with a configuration panel accessible from Control Panel or its Start menu icon.

CoolSoft MIDIMapper is not only a configurator for the well known MIDI registry keys (because that "hack" stopped working from Windows 8, see below) but a full alternative to (the now missing) Microsoft MIDI Mapper.

What is a MIDI Mapper?

Let's get back to Windows XP era, where MIDI was "exposed" to the public and it had its own place into "Sound and Multimedia" control panel application.
Users were able to select their default MIDI Out device from a list of all installed MIDI devices.
Based of this choice, all programs that were outputting a MIDI data stream (and had not selected a specific MIDI Out device) had their stream played by the selected device.

MIDIMapper was not real device but sort of "pipe": it receives a MIDI stream on its input and drive it to an user configured (real) MIDI Out device.
MIDIMapper, as said, was bundled with Windows, installed as MIDI device #0 and preconfigured to use the first available "real" device, usually the well-known Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth (MGWS from now on).

Another MIDI device was bundled, the well known Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth (MGWS from now on).
MGWS is a (low quality) software wave synth, installed as MIDI out device #1.
So on Windows XP, programmers had 2 well known devices: #0 (MIDIMapper) and #1 (MGWS), the former preconfigured to use the latter.
When a MIDI software (i.e. your MIDI player) starts playing, it should select a MIDI out device otherwise #0 is used.
There are a lot of softwares around without a configurable output device (think about game emulators and Active Movie based players, like Windows Media Player and MediaPlayer classic): they all use #0 by default.
Device #0 is MIDIMapper --> MIDIMapper is configured to use MGWS --> MGWS will play your MIDI.
This chain worked well: default users had a working MIDI synthesis out of the box.

It all worked up to Windows 7, but getting worst version by version:

• Windows XP: device #0 is MIDIMapper, #1 is MGWS
• Windows Vista / 7: same as above, but MIDIMapper configuration disappeared from control panel (registry settings were still available, so some third part tools were released as workaround)
• Windows 8 and newer: no more MIDIMapper, registry keys hack not working anymore!

Why do I need it?

Well, in fact you don't need it, but only if your MIDI clients (players, games, DAWs) allows you to select a specific output device.
If not, then go on reading...

On Windows 8 the MIDIMapper device has been completely removed so MIDI softwares are now REQUIRED to select a specific device (no selection still means #0).
I wrote "REQUIRED" because, worst of all, MGWS is now installed with some sort of "dynamic" ID: #0 out of the box, but it becomes #1 if you install another one (like VirtualMIDISynth or an USB MIDI device).

Anyway #0 won't lead to a well known situation like in pre-Windows 8 era; #0 could be MGWS or any other one; that's why you now need to select a specific device (it could also force you to upgrade your software).
If you can't (and your software uses #0), you're out of luck: it will use the first in the devices list...

Links

If you have any issue with MIDIMapper (or you have a suggestion/request) visit the MIDIMapper forum and search if another user had the same issue before; if not, start a new thread there.