Per an official update on Microsoft’s Known Issues page, January security updates made to recent versions of Windows (namely Windows 11 24H2, 10 22H2, Server 2019, and Server 2016) have rendered USB 1.0-based external DACs non-functional with Windows, with no proper fix being available, instead requiring users to directly connect their audio devices to the PC and lose all the benefit of their DACs.
Per the official documentation, “After installing this security update, you might experience issues with USB audio devices. You are more likely to experience this issue if you are using a USB 1.0 audio driver based DAC (Digital to Analog converter) in your audio setup. This issue might cause USB audio devices to stop working, […] Resulting from this issue, the Device Manager might display the error ‘This device cannot start. (Code 10) Insufficient system resources exist to complete the API’.”
What exactly caused the issue in what should have been innocuous security updates remains unknown. Still, Microsoft is aware of the issue and is actively working on an update to fix the problem. While they do claim, “Users can avoid this issue by avoiding the use of an external DAC in the connection process and directly plugging your audio device to your PC.”, this only fixes the issue of basic audio playback, not any of the numerous audiophile-centric reasons one would want an external DAC or amplifier separate from the interference-heavy internals of your typical PC.
This news is sure to displease audio professionals and enthusiasts. Fortunately, suppose you’re far enough behind on your PC updates and haven’t experienced this issue. In that case, you may have some luck stalling out the update window (selectable in Windows Update) long enough to fix this. However, that’s not a sure-fire method,, and you may be forced to update before that time comes.
Alternatively, you could consider side-booting Linux to explore the world of open-source audio software. While that certainly has its difficulties, your DAC should work fine on any mainstream Linux distribution at the time of writing.
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