It is recommended that you disconnect/remove all M-Audio devices from your system before performing a major operating system update.  Updating your OS can alter product driver files or cause temporary voltage fluctuations in you system, which could potentially cause a number of different problems with your M-Audio device.

If you are using a Windows system, installing a new Microsoft Service Pack would be considered an update significant enough to warrant temporarily removing your M-Audio hardware.

If you are using Mac OS X, moving up one or more OS X version numbers (from 10.4.5 to 10.4.6, for example) would be considered an update significant enough to justify temporarily removing your M-Audio hardware.