Turning Headphones On

dell laptop XPS L521X
win 10 home vers 21H2 build 19044

on prior PCs plugging headphones in redirected sound to them. current one continues to send it to the onboard speakers despite a popup acknowledging that it saw the phones get plugged in.

googled-up solutions focus around going into volume control>sounds>playback and force-changing things from speakers to headphones. thing is, mine has the one entry "speakers/headphones". what does THAT mean?!

i see others complaining about the same thing, namely "speakers and headphones showing as one device" but none getting any resolution. most of the answers involve tweaking something in "realtek HD audio manager". well, that's nowhere in the control panel as they claim, but if i hand-follow one of the suggestions, i can open the end-file: C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA\RtkNGUI64.exe

well, that's worse! mine says "Dell Audio" and has none of the settings they claim this "Realtek" one should have.

there are other discussions devoted to DLing "realtek HD audio manager" if u lack it, but since nothing has been correct in the prior 4 rounds, i'm gonna quit digging. can someone here talk me thru this in a more intelligent way?

LASTLY, several sites claim there's a similar setting accessible via the volume slider "since version 1607":

Quickly Change the Audio Playback Device in Windows 10 Annivers. ary Update (techjunkie.com)

well, i'm WAY past that verion (right?), but i have no such up-arrow!

geesh. do u need a doctorate in order to TURN ON some F@#$%^&*!! HEADPHONES these days?!

and what is the logic of "speakers/headphones" as a single entry to begin with? it's the VERY THING we are all trying to choose BETWEEN!

 

UPDATE: somehow, post-reboot, they started working! and switching automatically (headphones in, they turn on and speakers mute; headphones out, speakers turn back on).

NO CLUE how i accomplished this or how i will ever do it again if needs be!!!! afaict, i never ended up FINDING any of the settings to change, let alone ever toggling any of them!

sum total of my actions seems to have been: plug in phones, find not working; reboot pc WITH PHONES STILL PLUGGED IN, now they work!

my hatred for computers grows with every new day.