It’s all about battery life; basically we want to hold the device’s audio offload resources for apps that can play with the screen off. Windows Store apps (which meet certain criteria) can continue to play with the screen off; if these apps are playing to the audio offload resource, there is a significant power savings. But when the screen is turned off on a WinRT device, all Desktop apps are suspended. From: wdmaudiodev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:wdmaudiodev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tim Roberts Sent: Friday, August 16, 2013 5:09 PM To: wdmaudiodev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [wdmaudiodev] Re: Is there a way to list all supported format of an audio device Frank Yerrace wrote: That is a policy implemented within the Windows audio system. Are you kidding me? Are you saying it's now Microsoft policy to be openly hostile to Win32 applications? That does not bode well for the future. -- Tim Roberts, timr@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:timr@xxxxxxxxx> Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.