Computer strangeness

[plural]

ok

so lets be clear here, to draw criticism for microsoft for this
isnt really appropriate, but I still find it very odd.

I possess a set of high end usb computer speakers
manufactured by microsoft but never which never made it to market
at the time (1998) the price point for computer speakers was too low
to make the manufacture of these particular speakers profitable
so microsoft downgraded the specs and components
instead releasing the "digital sound system 80"
which had good reviews but still was priced at the high end of computer speakers
and was eventually dropped for lack of sales.

until recently I have been using these speakers
on my server 2003 box to play mp3
now I am not sure exactly which patch it was
but I applied a number of patches to server 2003
one of which caused the speakers to stop working

I transferred the speakers to my client (XP pro)
and they are working just fine.

what is particularly odd is that I am pretty sure
none of the patches I downloaded had anything to do with
USB or media devices

but anyway...