Windows 10 and the external sound card

After resisting for a long time and checking all the compatibility issues, I decided to finally upgrade my laptop to Windows 10. It all went rather smoothly. Everything worked, except ...

I have this external sound card, the "8-CHANNEL 3D USB 2.0 EXTERNAL 7.1 SURROUND SOUND BOX W/DIGITAL OUTPUT, USB-SND8."

When the upgrade was finally all done, the sounds came just from the laptop's regular speakers. No problem, I said, just need to assign my card as the default sound device and things will be fine again. Well, not exactly, since Windows 10 threw in a new thing. Soooo ...

I found the sound setup dialog and made sure that the external sound card was set as the default, but now there was no sound at all. I immediately checked all the connections, the device was on, everything looked as it should, but no sound. I went to the manufacturer's website and found out that this device was not (yet, I suppose) compatible with Windows 10. Great, I said to myself and started looking for another USB sound card. 

But then something told me to investigate a bit more and, after trying all I knew how, I did the following. I marked the USB speakers in the sound setup dialog, clicked on "Properties" and (eventually) "Levels." 

Sure enough the little Speakers and Line and Microphone speaker icons were all marked with a "No-no" sign. I unchecked them all and it all now worked fine.
 
I thought this might be of use to somebody else out there.