Issue with Aurora 16 & AES16e - Windows vs Cubase

I have an Aurora 16 & AES16e card on a Windows 7 machine running Cubase.

I was never positive if this was the proper operation, but even when I first purchased and installed this set a few years ago the interface only worked on Windows sounds if Cubase wasn't open.  As soon as I would open Cubase all other Windows apps would not play sound.  No other program seemed to have this problem.

I'm not sure what has changed (no new software of significance I can think of), but a few weeks ago this started happening with other programs as well.  Firefox, iTunes, media player, if one is open and playing sound nothing else can play.

I've uninstalled the Lynx drivers and re-installed the most up to date version from the site (the new mixer looks/works great!), but still I have this same issue.
I realize it might be an issue with Windows at this point, but does anyone have any suggestions of where I might look?

No conflicts listed in the device manager.  The mixer loads and says it's connected to the Aurora.  Everything looks OK.  On the Windows Playback Device screen I can sometimes get audio to come back by playing with the default device selection between 01-02(speakers) and 03-04, but it's a hassle and doesn't always work (sometimes I can't get any sound from any output).  The input meters look like they're working fine even when nothing is coming through the output.

thanks in advance for any help!
Mike Z

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the reply but that does not solve the issue.  I know I can buss any out to 1-2 (which is a great feature for sure!).  I get that ASIO apps will take control of certain ins and outs too.  The problem here is that when ANY program uses ANY output no other program can output sound on any output. 
The thing seems to get stuck too when I try to start another program, and then nothing will play though any output at all.
There's something peculiar going on, it's as if the second program is getting a memory leak or clog when trying to pass audio (and that only happens with audio, otherwise all programs are running normally).
To add to the strangeness, as I said before if I toggle back and forth the default audio device in Windows that seems to jar it loose and said program will play again.  But as soon as I open a second program once more the sound stops. 
What also seems to work is just cycling through the sync source button directly on the Aurora.  Again that can jar a program to start talking to the interface again for whatever reason, but once I try to start a second program the sound cuts out for everything.
I'm guessing that perhaps even though I uninstalled the old drivers before installing the new, that somehow there are traces still left in my registry.  Perhaps programs are trying to access a second copy of the driver files.  But I'm really just guessing at that.
I've tried everything I could think of but to no avail.