I've also been having trouble with my headphones not having any sound when I plug them in. I found a fix which may work for some of you (assuming we're having the same problem).
Go to your Playback Devices window as mentioned above. If your headphones are not plugged in, the headphones device should still be visible but "Not plugged in". If you can't see it, follow the steps above to enable it as it might be disabled. And the "Speakers"
should be set as your default device.
After plugging in your headphones, the headphones status should immediately switch itself to be the default device.
First make sure your volume on your headphones is turned up (on your laptop and through the windows Volume mixer.
Now back to your playback devices window, right click on your headphones and click "Test". If you see the little volume bar moving but you hear no sound, right click the headphones again and go to the properties. Click to the "Advanced" tab.
Go ahead and try clicking the "Test" button again and you still won't hear anything. But change the default format to ANY other sample rate. Now go ahead and click "Test" again.
You might be prompted with a message that says the device is being used by another application. If so, go ahead and click "Yes".
You should hear the test notification ring! Go ahead and set the default format to any sample rate you choose and click the "OK" button. Headphones should be working now!
If you didn't hear any sound when clicking that Test button, keep trying out different sample rates until you get sound. This may not work for everyone, but it works for me. I have to do this almost every time I plug headphones in so it's real frustrating,
but at least I know what the solution is!
Happy listening! :)