[solution] port name on windows XP with USB midi drivers...

Because someone may come across this at some point. Some background: if you use class-compliant USB MIDI devices, windows XP does not use the name the hardware provides, but simply calls it "USB Audio Device". This is annoying, but not a huge deal.
However, this generic name depends on language. If you use French as your language in XP, for example, the port will have the name "Périphérique audio USB"
For whatever reason, XP is unable to report this correctly in some instances. If you use 'midiinfo' to make a menu, you'll see:
"P riph rique audio USB"
It's not just Max: for example, the Jazz-Soft browser plugin (for midi in/out for your browser) also reports the port this way.
The problem is not only cosmetic - if you process that port name in javascript, then try to pass it to a 'midiin' object, it won't recognize it as a port, and may even crash your patch. The Jazz-Soft plugin is also unable to open a MIDI port when this corrupted name is passed.
HOWEVER!! It is possible to change that generic name. This is the solution to possible problems this may cause:
edit C:windowsinfwdma_usb.inf
lines 1521 & 1522 (maybe only one is enough but I don't test it)
USBCLASS_01.DeviceDesc="Périphérique audio USB"
USBGenericDesc="Périphérique audio USB"
changed to
USBCLASS_01.DeviceDesc="Paripharique audio USB"
USBGenericDesc="Paripharique audio USB"

Without the accented 'e', things will work. More detail here:
http://forum.lividinstruments.com/discussion/17207/code-editor-crash-on-start#Item_17