Windows 10: How to get the microphone to work property on Win 10 ?

I have a new Dell Inspiron 7000 16 GB with an i5 processor running Windows 10 Home at the moment. At first I hated Win 10 but learned there are just a lot of features configured by default to frustrate users (like menu delays, blurry screens, etc.) The feature I have not gotten past is the microphone. Neither the native sounds setup nor Cortana (which probably uses the same API I'm guessing) properly hear either my built-in microphone nor my Andrea USB-SA Headset. The headseat is LOUD and clear on my Win 7 Pro laptop (miss you in the seven forums Brink) but when I try to setup the mic using Win 10, the dictation does an odd thing. It starts out with the meter showing I am loud "Peter dictates..." but then it shows quieter "...to his computer." and I am not changing the volume of my voice. It continues to show even quieter during "He prefers it to typing ..." and by the end, Windows says it did not hear me very clearly.

Under Sound > recording > Microphone > Properties, I have tried the mic levels at 25%, 50%, 80%, 100% all show the same results as above.

Under Sound > Communications I have tried changing the auto-adjust to "Do nothing." but no affect.

Any known fixes? Most of my other finds for Win 10 involved a registry change to eliminate out-of-box-stupidities.

I have confirmed that my headset works just fine when I plug it into my Win7 Pro laptop.

UPDATE:
I notice that whilst reciting, as I described above, the mic sensitivity is lowered "too low" but if I pause long enough between words or phrases, Windows seems to increase the sensitivity a bit. So, saying a word at a time, with pauses between, in a VERY UNNATURAL way, the microphone sensitivity will be sufficient to get through the entire phrase about Peter. The challenge is not pausing too long or you cannot complete the phrase in time.

:)

 

how do I get my microphone to work in Win 10

With my older analog microphone, I simply plugged it into the specially marked microphone jack on my computer. It worked fine.

My newer digital microphone is included with my webcam. I plug the webcam's USB cable into a USB connector on my computer and everything works. Windows 10 has a driver for my webcam that was automatically installed.

 

how do I get my microphone to work in Win 10

Not enough information.



My basic instructions would be:

1) Install the proper device drivers for your audio hardware device.

2) Make sure you can hear audio from said device (plug in speakers, play a sound.)

3) Make sure you can record audio from said device (plug in microphone, record a sound.)

The specifics necessary there are the audio device manufacturer, architecture of your OS, how your microphone connects, etc.