Underneath Microsoft Universal Audio Architecture

"Microsoft’s long-awaited Windows Vista operating system has plenty of underlying changes. One of the major changes to Windows Vista is a brand new audio stack dubbed Universal Audio Architecture (UAA). UAA completely revamps the way Windows Vista communicates with audio devices and offers a basic audio driver for all UAA compliant devices. Microsoft also introduced early UAA functionality in Windows XP when high definition audio (Intel Azalia) was released a couple years ago. Current UAA compliant audio devices include integrated high definition audio, USB audio and IEEE 1394 AV/C devices.