Hi gcruz,
the success was short-lived. After some reboots the delay of the drivers happened again.
FYI I did the following:
I installed the latest driver from M-Audio and followed the instructions:
M-Audio USB device not recognized by applications after connecting to different USB ports Text size
[-] [+] If you have an M-Audio USB device that is not recognized by any applications, but is recognized in the Windows Device Manager, and has been connected to different USB ports, follow the steps below to try and resolve this issue.
Start by disconnecting your M-audio USB device
Click the Start Button, select Programs > Accessories and right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator" to launch the Command Window.
Copy and paste the following commands, one line at a time into the command window. You will need to right click in the command window to paste these commands.
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
Press Enter and then copy and paste the line below:
start devmgmt.msc
Press Enter and the Device Manager will open.
Click Show hidden devices on the View menu in Device Manager.
Right-click and choose to uninstall each instance of your M-Audio device, and if prompted to uninstall the drivers, choose yes. After all instances have been removed, restart the computer, reconnect the device and it should re-install automatically.
Try configuring your software to use your M-Audio device
Since I use a SSD Disk for my OS, the time for booting Win 7 is finished in 15 seconds. Nice, but maybe too fast.
It takes 1-2min before applications (Sonar or stand-alone-synths) recognize the Midi device.
I will continue to search for a solution...