[eliasmacpherson]

It's not just you, you will find most if not all vendors of external audio devices for Windows will have a tech support page saying you have to hit 'reset defaults' after Windows Update if it chooses to change Sample Rate, default device etc.

Windows often changes the settings for internal Realtek devices, too. Windows Update can set unusable settings irrespective of whether vendor drivers are used or class compliant Microsoft supplied ones.

That is not to say that Linux is any better.