Win 7 & Realtek HD Stereomix: No output... or is it input?

Hi, I've updated my prime workstation from XP to 7 (was told to avoid Vista because I use my workstations for pro audio and midi).

I use this new worstation for wave-editing only so I thought that I could use the onboard soundcard, but... I can not record anything from the stereomix!

I have activated the stereomix function and tried to set it as the default recording device, but it is simply not delevering any output - or to be more precise: it looks like it's not getting any input, because in the Windows mixer there is no reaction in the stereomix strip like no sound is being routed to the stereomix.

Trying to record in applications like Wavelab, Audacity or mp3mymp3 with the stereomix as input gain only give the delicate sound of silence...

Can anybody help?
I have looked other threads in this forum, but have not found any solution...

The stereomix is set to 100 in both the windows mixer and in the properties section. Again, its like the problem is no audio is routed to the stereomix...

I discovered that in the playback tab, speakers MUST be selected as the default output device. Even if you have headphones selected as the default and it falls back to speakers when you unplug the headphones, that will not help having the headphones unplugged. Speakers must be the default. This is because the Stereo Mix receives its actual signal from the Speaker output subsystem.