P6860 Microphone Jack Issue

I figured that it was long past time that I posted about this.

As many of you may know, the microphone jack on the P6860FX is disabled somehow by default. After much googling, and even more reading, everyone seemed to point to this thread, or more specifically this post as the solution.

My problem is that I don't quite understand the solution. Even after reinstalling my audio drivers to finally get the IDT sound control panel, I open it, and see this:



By the description in the post, I should be able to see something here to be able to change the jack from line in to microphone to get this to work. However, these are the options I am given:



As you can see, it is set to microphone by default. There is no option to change it from line in and solve the problem.

I've dealt with this for over a year now, and I'm quite tired of having to use a USB sound card, especially considering that this laptop series only has three USB ports.

Also, if there is no viable solution to this, perhaps there are custom sound drivers lying around somewhere that could help?

Any help in this matter would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edit:
After googling an image of the control panel on a whim, I came up with this, which looks NOTHING like the one that I posted.



Now, I realize that they might have changed the GUI in a driver update. But, whenever I attempt to update my IDT drivers through the Device Manager, they always end up with an error, and I end up with no sound at all. I am forced to perform a driver rollback. This is even more aggravating than I first believed.

 

hrm... i didnt know this. I've used my microphone jack a number of times and i've never had to worry with anything like that.

Plus my GUI did/does (i havent used the mic in Win7 yet to find out) look like your last image.

Odd...

 

Perhaps something will get fixed when I update to Win7, but for now, having to use a terrible USB hub isn't something that I like to do.

 

My settings are identical to your's in that first picture, so it should be working as long as you click the picture of the microphone. Have you tried reinstalling the drivers to make sure there wasn't an error? Also check to see if the mic by the webcam works, if so you may want to try a different mic to make sure the port itself isn't broken.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have another mic to test with. However, the microphone array by the webcam does work, and the microphone picture is selected.