How can I find out what is triggering Device Association Service?

The service Device Association Service which Enables pairing between the system and wired or wireless devices.

This service is set as Manual (Trigger Start). Normally this service never started by itself during computer turn on or restart. But from recent few days I have noticed that this service runs in the background at all times on startup and doesn't go away.

Is there a way to find out exactly which device is triggering this service to start? Surely Device Association Service isn't meant to be running in the background at all times?

I have made sure to update all drivers, everything is up to date. This service isn't using CPU usage and the memory is very low, admittedly. But I still want to find out what is triggering this service to start! I know I can disable the service, but then I won't know what is trying to start it up.

I solved the problem!

Basically, I have identified the cause of what was triggering the Device Association Service to start-up on Windows. Xbox One Controller preventing monitor from going to standby mode! Recently I have identified that the newest March 2019 Xbox One Drivers was causing my PDP Afterglow Xbox One Controller to not go on standby.

Uninstalling the latest drivers and installing the official PDP drivers dated 2014 from Xbox One - Afterglow Wired Controller – PDP Europe Support fixed my monitor and it is now going to standby mode when setting power option for monitor to sleep.

The trouble is that in doing so, Windows was interpreting those drivers as outdated causing this recent Device Association Service to start-up even when the service was set to Manual.

Here's how I solved the problem. Since I knew this is the only hardware/driver change I made recently. I decided to experiment by making sure I disabled the Afterglow Controller device from Device Manager as this was my first suspicion.

After restarting the PC I noticed that Device Association Service stopped starting up by itself! I was also getting Device Setup Manager - "Enables the detection, download and installation of device-related software. If this service is disabled, devices may be configured with outdated software, and may not work correctly."

I re-enabled Windows Update service as I had it disabled using Windows Update Blocker. After that I simply re-enabled the device back on again. Made a PC restart and like magic Device Association Service and Device Setup Manager stopped being triggered to start on again.

After doing that I used Windows Update Blocker tool and then disabled Windows Update and the Task Schedulers relating to it and Update Orchestrator service again. Now Windows is satisfied that all drivers are up to date and is no longer triggering Device Association Service and Device Setup Manager to start up anymore.

The bottom line is once you update the drivers Windows Update should first be enabled so it is convinced that the drivers are up to date and after that you can safely disable it again.