Moa Longkumer

4 hours ago, Robert Bone said:

Well, THAT'S pretty weird - glad you are up and running - maybe it got tired of fighting with you, and just gave in....

Bob Bone

Hahaha... like an exasperated bureaucrat.

I seem to have unwittingly solved the problem (At least for myself).

My configuration:
AMD FX-6300 3.5Ghz
12Gb RAM
SSD system drive
Windows 10 LTSC
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 (1st Gen...boy, did I have a royal migraine with the drivers, but that's fixed now)

To start with, these were the symptoms specific to my setup:
Double clicking the desktop icon OR  launching it from Bandlab Assistant would start it up. It would display the splash screen and stay stuck there for anything between 3 to 5 minutes. If I clicked anywhere during the period, it would say 'Cakewalk is not responding' . But in about 3-5 minutes it would resolve itself and thereafter work normally and generally, flawlessly.

Here's what I did....
1) I unplugged my 2i4, started up cakewalk and glory be! ...it took just a few seconds to start up!
2) While cakewalk was still in that state (running) , I re-plugged the 2i4.
3) Then I shut down Cakewalk.
4) Then I fired it up again with the 2i4 connected and great! it worked! 
5) Just to be sure, I restarted my machine, and then tried again...and much to my joy it started up in just a few moments.

Currently, it fires up in about 6 seconds.

I don't know if it'll work for everyone but it did for me.  Hope this helps!

Cheers!