In win 7 and win 10 have to select "speakers" for my headphones to work

[excalibur2]

h'mm seems illogical to me as I don't have any speakers for this floor standing computer.

[jim]

All you're doing is selecting the port on the sound card.

Often they'll only provide speaker ports on the rear, with people expected to plug headphones in on the front of the case - so if you've got speakers plugged into the front, you'd need to select headphones, and if you've got headphones plugged into the rear, you'd need to select speakers.

I'm assuming here that both are connected by 3.5mm jack, which is fairly common with PC speakers.

[excalibur2]

All you're doing is selecting the port on the sound card.

Often they'll only provide speaker ports on the rear, with people expected to plug headphones in on the front of the case - so if you've got speakers plugged into the front, you'd need to select headphones, and if you've got headphones plugged into the rear, you'd need to select speakers.

I'm assuming here that both are connected by 3.5mm jack, which is fairly common with PC speakers.

Oh well... I'm a win 10 insider and sent a report back to MS that I couldn't get groove to work, downloaded VLC that didn't work either...checked on the sound icon that my selection was set to head phones so couldn't see what was wrong, anyway went back to another drive with win 7 and I had set that for speakers but it was when I did have speakers...anyway it worked for win 10.

[jim]

By Groove, do you mean OneDrive For Business? If so a new version has just been released - it's still being worked on (doesn't yet have functionality for groups) but it's much better than the old versions in terms of UI at least.

VLC is fine on Windows 10 for me.

[excalibur2]

By Groove, do you mean OneDrive For Business? If so a new version has just been released - it's still being worked on (doesn't yet have functionality for groups) but it's much better than the old versions in terms of UI at least.

VLC is fine on Windows 10 for me.

MS Groove supposed to be for music etc. I suppose it's taken over from media player, but groove and VLC work now I've set headphones to speakers....and don't use one drive.

[EndlessWaves]

h'mm seems illogical to me as I don't have any speakers for this floor standing computer.

Right click, pick properties and you can rename them.

I would imagine default sound device names are set by the sound drivers that create the devices rather than windows. Depending on the hardware it may be that your headphone output device is for the front audio port.

[excalibur2]

Right click, pick properties and you can rename them.

I would imagine default sound device names are set by the sound drivers that create the devices rather than windows. Depending on the hardware it may be that your headphone output device is for the front audio port.

Well the headphones are plugged in the back (motherboard) and have never tried the front...and just surprised in the latest whizz bang win 10 (and being an insider would be very near next major update on ordinary win 10) when you select headphones (to use headphones) they don't really mean headphones but speakers (to use headphones)

[scaryjim]

Well the headphones are plugged in the back (motherboard) and have never tried the front...and just surprised in the latest whizz bang win 10 (and being an insider would be very near next major update on ordinary win 10) when you select headphones (to use headphones) they don't really mean headphones but speakers (to use headphones)

As EndlessWave said, the port names are almost certainly set by the device drivers, which will initially give them default names for most common use. It's far more common for people to plug speakers into the motherboard panel and headphones into the front port. Some sound cards (and on-motherboard sound devices) will detect which port has something plugged in and hide the ones that can't be used, but that's a hardware feature NOT a Windows feature. It's a bit harsh to blame Windows when all it's doing is passing on to you the information that your sound provider gave it...

[excalibur2]

As EndlessWave said, the port names are almost certainly set by the device drivers, which will initially give them default names for most common use. It's far more common for people to plug speakers into the motherboard panel and headphones into the front port. Some sound cards (and on-motherboard sound devices) will detect which port has something plugged in and hide the ones that can't be used, but that's a hardware feature NOT a Windows feature. It's a bit harsh to blame Windows when all it's doing is passing on to you the information that your sound provider gave it...

Well I suppose nothing has changed from win 98 to win 10...but that's the way it is so that's that......but probably thousands around the world are\had making\made the same initial mistake over the years and were puzzled at first, when plugging in at the back

[jim]

MS Groove supposed to be for music etc. I suppose it's taken over from media player, but groove and VLC work now I've set headphones to speakers....and don't use one drive.

Ah OK.

Groove was a piece of software designed for team collaboration on documents by Microsoft, which later became the awkwardly named 'OneDrive For Business', and Groove was still the name 'under the hood'.

This music software is new to me.

I think the issue has been fairly well explained by others now, but just thought I'd clarify that side-point!

[excalibur2]

Ah OK.

Groove was a piece of software designed for team collaboration on documents by Microsoft, which later became the awkwardly named 'OneDrive For Business', and Groove was still the name 'under the hood'.

This music software is new to me.

I think the issue has been fairly well explained by others now, but just thought I'd clarify that side-point!

Well if you have a spare win 10 drive you can download the latest insider build but have to convert it to ISO (using a free program) then upgrade your win 10 from the DVD....the latest insider build probably is getting near the next major upgrade for win 10 which might be about July.......but if you want to play there are bugs to put up with e.g. Kaspersky doesn't install or hinders upgrade.