That's odd. I found my Linux system always got HDMI audio right while Windows always got it wrong. I seem to recall I was able to force VLC to go to the right place by adding it to a config file, but the system sound never did work right on Windows...I had to manually select HDMI every time it got plugged back in.
You had the wrong default selected in Windows mixer.
Need to select it as default when plugged and whenever it gets replugged it retake its priority. Works as expected with multiple default / temporarily plugged devices.
I think it was a buggy driver more than a Windows problem, as I tried selecting it as the default. It sometimes wouldn't show up when re-plugged in, as well. I'd even have to reboot sometimes to get it to show up as an option.
Doesn't work for me (not the person you are replying to) - every time I change input on my monitors Windows starts trying to use them for audio - doesn't matter what default I set, even disabling them.
I can second that. I'm by no means a fan of PulseAudio, I got bitten by it many times in the past, but my experience with Windows and audio over HDMI has been at least as bad. Even with a fully updated Windows 10 and a bog-standard on-board audio chip, Windows consistently messes up my speaker configuration or randomly mutes the audio. Particularly after updates it regularly forgets that I have a 5.1 receiver hooked up over HDMI and defaults back to stereo, and I have to re-configure it again.
