Abstract:
Microsoft officially confirmed that the out-of-band emergency update launched for Windows 11 systems failed to fully solve the recent audio failure problem, and a thorough repair patch may not be officially pushed until the monthly update (Patch Tuesday) on October 13.
This problem originally originated from the cumulative security update pushed by Microsoft on September 8 this year. After upgrading, many users found that the audio output device in the system was paralyzed. Not only did the device manager frequently throw out error messages such as "The device cannot be started (code 10)", but it was also accompanied by abnormal performance such as volume control buttons malfunctioning, the sound settings page being stuck or unresponsive, and even the entire audio device not being recognized by the system at all. Official investigations show that the affected hardware is mainly focused on audio devices that comply with the USB Audio Class 1.0 standard, covering a large number of common peripherals such as external sound cards, USB microphones, and headphones.
In response to this large-scale failure, although Microsoft quickly released an emergency out-of-band update (Out-of-band Update) for repairs a few days later, the actual effect did not meet expectations. Microsoft admitted in its latest official technical document that the emergency update only successfully fixed some switching failures involving 8-channel and 3D surround sound modes. For more core and common failure phenomena such as "the device cannot start" and "the system has no sound at all", the relevant reasons are still under investigation. This means that even if users install the latest emergency patch, the audio function of a large number of devices is still disabled.
Since these security updates contain a large number of critical security vulnerability fixes, Microsoft officials do not recommend that users restore audio by directly uninstalling the updates. Instead, they recommend that affected users try to temporarily switch their devices to two-channel stereo mode to avoid crashes in multi-channel mode. However, for the majority of users who are faced with a complete failure to boot their device, there is currently no effective temporary alternative.
In response to this situation, Microsoft stated that the engineering team is actively investigating compatibility defects in the underlying drivers and interface protocols. Since the problem repair and testing will take time, it is expected that a patch covering the complete repair solution will not be released separately in a short time. Affected users will most likely need to wait until the next "Patch Tuesday" in October to completely get rid of the audio fault.
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