Set up USB Headphones in Windows Vista

With your USB Headphones plugged into an available USB port.
Right click the speaker icon in the system tray - by default located on the bottom right of your display.
Choose Playback Devices. Right click the headset and then click the Set as Default button.

If you play games on your computer, the game or other program that uses sounds may reset your default sound device back to your speakers - so you may have to periodically go back in and re-set up the default sound device.

Headphones that plug into your sound card via the round connections are sometimes more user friendly, (depending on your situation) but if you are using the headphones for a phone, you will have to use your microphone input and your speaker output.

If your computer is on the floor and you don't want to crawl in the back, AND you have
USB connectors in the front of your computer, then in that case, the USB headphones may be more user friendly for you in the physical realm, but you will
have to deal with enabling and disabling them and re-enabling them through Windows, if you play a game or some other program changes the default device.
Like many computer issues, your experience may vary.

Microsoft Doomed - my answer to Lockergnome's question

I replied to this question
"Is Microsoft Doomed To Failure As Some Believe? I Seriously Doubt It"
on Lockergnome.
I want to see if my guess is good - time will tell.
Would also like feedback here to the question - what do you think?
Also want to see what others will post.

Link:
...Microsoft doomed to failure...?


I don’t think Microsoft is anywhere near doomed to failure!
There will always be room for improvement and Microsoft will have to continue working hard and smart to improve its products.
Windows and Office Rock.

I have my gripes - I would like to see the old start menu / explorer navigation as an option that we can choose - the new
Windows Explorer may be good for some - but would like to see user choice - yes more user choice - I believe that is important
and will let users, geeks and casual users alike know that they are being thought of and have a choice in things OS related.

Macs OS X may some day be a contender - it is not there yet but is growing in popularity - not sure about the iPad?
Does not hit a spot for me - no built in USB, multi tasking, or camera and microphone.
OS X still does not have the ease of use that Windows has.
I can get around in OS X, but not as easily as in Windows, even though I have used both OSes for years.
I love Windows ability to hit the home button in notepad, or any text editor, Word, Wordpad, etc. when you hit the home button the cursor goes to the first of the line, not first of document like Mac, you can hit ctr. + home for that, and end goes to the end of the line, not end of the document, ctrl + end will do that. I think Windows should cost less and Office.
And speaking of choice, I would like to see a way to switch off the Office Ribbon - not a fan of it.
I know you can download non MS supported programs to do away with the Ribbon, and get the Classic Start Menu / Explorer functions but - I would like a Microsoft supported method to turn these features on and off. Thanks for all you do Chris.
Ron
thevirusfighter.blogspot.com
tweeting as:
virusfighter