One Man's Bug, Another's Feature

My laptop gives me two possibilities of controlling sound. I can play it on laptop speakers and I can play it on headphones (with laptop speakers going mute as soon as I plug it in). I think that these are standard modes available on any laptop.

However, there was sound in my headphones even when I pressed mute button. I considered this a great feature! In normal muting scenario, laptop speakers would play as soon as I unplug headphones. In this scenario, I could have speakers muted and headphones working. I do lot of work during night and this feature ensured that, even if I unplug headphones by accident, no sound will be heard.

What I considered feature, someone considered a bug. I noticed new driver on Windows Update for my audio card and as soon as I installed it, my favorite feature was gone. Someone decided that this inconsistent behavior needs to be fixed.

Headphones are now also muted when mute button is pressed. I can use headphones in “standard” way of auto-muting laptop speakers when headphones are inserted, but that also means that, in case of unplugging, I have laptop speakers playing at full volume.

I could roll back to previous version of driver and this would work for a while. However, I will need to reinstall laptop sooner or later and at that point in time I will get newest drivers over Windows Update. And that will be sad day for me.