Windows 11 keeps changing audio output.

I love how the "experts" don't read the original message. Scary if they are experts.

I have an HP Envy 17 laptop that changes the default speakers EVERY time I power cycle it. Not on a reboot, but every power up I have no sound and have to go choose my speaker/headphone again, EVEN THOUGH they are set and confirmed to be correctly set as default. I've also tried every "solution" I can find online. So frustrating.

Screen shot shows what I have set correctly to default. On power up it always changes to the USB speakers.

Same problem here with a high-end home-cinema setup. I basically have to reenable my Denon AVC-X7800H plugged into an RTX3090 every few days and it's annoying as hell. There should really be a way to clamp those configurations down without WIndows being able to change anything without user input. Apart from that I've only had good experiences with WIndows 11!

god i wish i could work for microsoft because it seems the only advice and or solutions you people have is..... "Have you tried the Audio Troubleshooter"

here let me give you a automated detailed response on how to use the Audio Troubleshooter.....

what a joke like you guys get paid how much to divert customers to an automated far to broad troubleshooting program that 9 times out of 10 never actually gets the issue solved....

how do i apply for your job lawlz....

ive had the same sound issue for a yr and have gone from windows 10 to windows 11 only to have the same issue follow to this operating system

and i know the fault lies in your garbage **** Real Tek drivers that have seriously been a thorn in the side of anyone running windows since idk when you all implemented them

This is not something you can "fix" this is a problem with the way windows is designed from what I can tell. The problem (for me anyway) is that all these monitors have audio over HDMI or whatever connection and so (for me) when a monitor with audio capability is connected windows automatically switches to it, by default and there is apparently no setting to disable this behavior.

Its so annoying to be completely honest. Why is it so hard to give us more control over this? Why cannot I not set it to not ever change the audio output device from a specific device (input and output) aka locked? - This would hold true unless for some reason that device became unavailable at which point it would default to the next best device. However, for this to be an actual good feature, is that if the original "locked device" became available again, in that situation it should automatically switch back to that device. I know this cannot be that hard to implement.

A lot of us use laptops and we move back and forth between workstations that have different peripherals so this is a constant annoyance. I'm sure the only hope is a 3rd party software that can make up for MS shortcomings on this issue. I do use a "tray-icon" software package called "audio switcher" which helps me deal with switching things back when they get messed up with out having to mess about in the system settings. It has a "favorite" feature but unfortunately it does not work how I just described.

The problem with the disconnecting / reconnecting devices is that even if you "uninstall" or "disable" the device to teach windows you do not want to use them, as soon as they get disconnected and reconnected any of those settings get tossed out with the bathwater and its treated as a completely new device so you cant even disable all of the "devices" you never want to use because of this...