Hey! I am working with .MID files (format 1) and when I am opening one of these with Cakewalk the layout is completely unworkable. There aren't busses, the console is docked in a messy way and the browser fills a huge part of the screen. I have tried to load a custom "lens" or a screenset but it doesn't work. The problem isn't the MIDI file because a tried with more than fifty and the problem remains the same.
Thank you!

There are no buses because a MIDI file does not have them. The rest of the layout depends on how the DAW is set up. I do not mess with lenses and have the default screenset. In my case, a MIDI file opens in the track view without a browser, inspector on the left and an empty multidock collapsed below the track view.

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Hey! I am working with .MID files (format 1) and when I am opening one of these with Cakewalk the layout is completely unworkable. There aren't busses, the console is docked in a messy way and the browser fills a huge part of the screen. I have tried to load a custom "lens" or a screenset but it doesn't work. The problem isn't the MIDI file because a tried with more than fifty and the problem remains the same.
Thank you!

Rather than opening the .MID file directly, you're better off creating a new project using the "Blank" template and dragging the .MID file on to the track pane from the Media browser.
 
This will create the default busses / pro-channel modules etc.
 
If the screen layout is too messy, consider creating a lense to cut down the clutter.

Importing MIDI files strips tempo data. Only by opening MIDI files does tempo data make it into a project.

Once I open a .mid file in Cakewalk/Sonar, I adjust the layout to suit my needs, then save it as a .cwp project, rather than a .mid file.  That way my layout settings are preserved in the .cwp file.

In addition to the above, if you have no MIDI outputs assigned in SONAR/CbB (check in preferences to verify, and if you need to remove them, save preferences and close SONAR/CbB before the next step). Once verified no MIDI outputs, you can right click a MIDI file to "open with..." and choose SONAR/CbB (or may even have SONAR/CbB set as the default app for MIDI files already). This will launch SONAR/CbB, and instantiate the tracks using TTS-1 (pulling in tempo info and track/patch info), but the layout will be off and no busses. From that point, you do want to adjust layout and save as a cwp so that project information is retained (a MIDI file will not retain SONAR/CbB-specific info). Once you are working with a cwp file, you can replace MIDI tracks with Soft Synths and work from there.

You always have to start with one Audio and one Midi track created to make a simple midi track.  From there you can choose your VST and run the imported midifile into it.    1 bus is automatically created Master with two others but it's easy to make them.  I have to study your question the next time I open cake I'll try some experiments.