I teach a lot of Zoom classes. I also like to hear myself in my headphones while I am lecturing. In the past year I purchased two different brand headphones with microphones that cost ~$25 to $35 from Amazon to use in Windows 10. Neither would work right. I could not hear myself speaking but I could hear my students fine. I read support forums online and even sent a support request to a manufacturer, all came up empty. Finally I decided to just start digging in Windows 10 and find the missing checkbox.

Here are the steps to correct this problem:

1. 1. Plug in your USB headphones; make sure your headphones are selected as default
   2. Press the Windows key and enter Control Panel
   3. Click on Sound in Control Panel; your layout for Control Panel may be different than mine, just look for Sound
      
   4. On the Playback tab, click on Speakers (seems odd going to Speakers to fix a microphone)
      
   5. Click on Properties
   6. Now click on the Levels tab
   7. On the right side of the Microphone levels, UNcheck the little Speaker Icon to turn on your microphone (one sneaky little checkbox)
   8. Finally, click OK and OK again, and close the open programs

Before I forget where I found the checkbox, I recorded this video which I hope will help other frustrated headphone users: