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I have both external speakers (plugged into the 1/8" jack on the back of the PC) and headphones (in 1/8" jack on the front of the PC). My computer automatically mutes the speakers when I plug in the headphones and unmutes it when I remove the headphones. I'd like a way to leave the headphones plugged in, and control through which jack sound is sent via a keyboard shortcut (or taskbar icon if need be). I.e. I could hit CTRL-SHIFT-M (or whatever) to swap between speakers and headphones.

I'm using Win XP on Dell Optiplex hardware.

How can I do this?

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I solved this problem by purchasing a cheap headphone splitter

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I plugged that into the back of my computer putting my speakers into one and my headphones into the other.

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But then both are always on, right? What about when you only want the headphones? (My speakers are pretty low-tech, don't have a separate power button or volume control) – Benj Aug 6 '10 at 20:12
Not to mention vice-versa... I often wear my headphones throughout the day for phone calls (via skype) but prefer listening to ambient music when I'm not on a call. I'd prefer not to have to take off the headphones to silence them. – Benj Aug 6 '10 at 20:13
@Benj - My speakers have a separate volume/power control so that's not a problem for me, and the headphones are always on (not on me but they always play music) doesn't bother me as I can't here them over the speakers. – Nifle Aug 6 '10 at 20:30
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