Delay when opening sound in windows 7 control panel
I have a similar problem but it's more of an annoyance. I have a Microsoft LX-3000 USB headset and if I plug this in, windows 7 won't start using it automatically (it's not set to default sound device and windows 7 won't remember this setting after unplugging it). So naturally I'll right click on the sound icon and open playback devices (alternatively you can try control panel->sounds). Either way it takes about 30 seconds, sometimes longer, to actually open. This is quite unacceptable as I built this rig to be responsive. This delay repeats every time the window is reopened too, it doesn't go away after the first time.
I noticed I had two extra sound devices in device manager - ATI High Definition Audio Device. After disabling these the delay went away. What is most amazing is windows seems to remember the default sound device setting now. I can unplug the headset and audio simply changes to the speakers. Plug back in and it goes back to the headset.
This may not be a problem with realtek or ATI, also I haven't had time to trust that everything's working properly. If anyone else is experiencing this problem I'd be interested to know.
All in all I've found windows 7 to be pretty decent, but I haven't yet found a way to enable full row selection in explorer so I stop getting the folder properties instead of file properties. I'd also like auto-sort turned off so I can rename a bunch of files with F2 and arrow keys or not have to go searching for the new file I created (should be at the bottom, unsorted).
btw, it's Windows 7 x64
