Can't change default audio device

[Brett]

I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 and I just reinstalled (for the 12th time)
yesterday. The reasons for the reinstall were explorer.exe freezes from an
unknown origin. Anyway, prior to me reinstalling, I had all my audio (except
Skype and Trillian Astra chat) going through my desktop speakers. Now after
the reinstall, I've got everything going through my Logitech USB headset.

So if I go into the Playback Devices area, I set my speakers as the Default
device, and when I click "Okay" and then go back to it again, the USB headset
is once again marked as default instead of my desktop speakers. I've tried
restarting. I'm up-to-date with everything (except SP1) so I think I'm in
good shape as far as drivers go. Any ideas would be helpful. All I want to
do is to have ALL audio go through my desktop speakers while only select
programs (ones I can configure manually) going through the USB headset. Any
ideas?

I've tried disabling the USB headset. Once I reenable it, it gets set as
the default device.

[Brett]

Okay, so it seems that WMP was doing something to hold back the changing of
the default audio device. Once I went into WMP and changed it that way
(which was no different than any other time really) it seemed to work.

[petermichelson]

I have a similar problem:

1. I installed the slipstreamed version of Vista SP1 Ultimate 32bit
(clean install) on my computer.

2. Attached to my computer is a Plantronics USB headset for VoIP
telephony.

3. I didn't have to install additional audio drivers since sound worked
directly after I had Vista installed.

4. However, I'm unable to change the default playback device (which is
set to the USB headset currently) to the internal sound card.

5. When I do that in "Sound" of the control panel, the green check box
changes, but when I close the window and re-open it, the default device
is again the USB headset. I did notice though that after such procedure
the Windows Sounds are played back on the correct speakers (and not on
the headset). So something changes apparently...

6. I also tried changing it through WMP as was suggested here, but that
didn't help in any way at all. Speaking of which: Where exactly did you
change those settings (I did under Tools\Options\Devices\Speakers).

7. I also noticed that when I boot and log into Vista, the sound plays
fine on my speakers (and not on the USB headset). However, once logged
into Vista, the default sound device is (again) the USB headset.

This is really a nightmare. If I want sound on my speakers I need to
disable the headset. Yet then I cannot use VoIP anymore. (And vice
versa).


Any ideas which registry tweak might solve this? It looks to me like
something in Vista is interfering with/overriding whichever device is
selected as the default playback device. What do you think could cause
and solve this?

Thanks everyone!