It also do this for monitor or usb/bluetooth earphones. So you end up get earphone(2), monitor(2) even you never have a second one. The only way to fix it is delete the hidden device in device monitor and rename it back in monitor/audio manager.
It's really a confusing thing to me that the script I use to change sound output and leveling suddenly didn't work after a bios/mobo software/whatever windows update and noticing the device have an appended (2).
And this is why I hate Windows in an industry automation environment. Dislike having to troubleshoot why that USB NIC or Serial device being destroyed by plugging it into another port. Had to write a PowerShell script for the USB NIC issue to reapply NIC settings with a reboot.
Also, always locking an open file is repulsive. Other OSs allow for renaming an open file. Not Windows! Thumbs.db being locked because File Explorer keeps the file open / locked preventing deleting an empty folder and wastes so much time waiting for Windows to unlock the file.
It's really a confusing thing to me that the script I use to change sound output and leveling suddenly didn't work after a bios/mobo software/whatever windows update and noticing the device have an appended (2).