Well there is a notification box in realtek Sound Manager's Audio/I-O -> Analog -> [wrench icon] -> Connector Settings in which i need to place a tick in "Disable front panel jack detection" but unfortunately i am unable to see that option in my driver. There is only one option in there which says "enable auto popup dialog, when device has been plugged in."

Does anyone know how to bring that option back?

Note: I have uninstalled the old driver and installed the latest driver just few weeks ago which apparently means every setting has been put back to default.

Here is a screencap
hxxp://i40.tinypic.com/b5sjo2.jpg

Your screenshot link should start with http not hxxp... Are you using the right driver for your motherboard? What is your motherboards model number? Do you have the case front panel audio connector removed from the motherboard, or is it in the wrong place?

Thanks for the quick response! Well newbies got this image link restriction so i had to tweak the link a bit to be able to post it.

I thought it was some type of software issue/bug. Now i'm confused more after getting to know it's a hardware problem.

First of all i'm a laptop owner and have no clue about the model of my motherboard, heck i cant even disassemble my laptop just to check everything is correctly connected to the motherboard. Laptops are complicated to take apart and i can mess up everything just by my lack of knowledge.
Any other suggestion?

Well its nice to know that it is a laptop running XP right? This left out detail changes things. There is no "front panel" there are no cables to connect... It comes down to a driver issue or a motherboard problem. What is this laptops make and model number? Is XP updated to service pack 3?

Its an Acer travelmate 3262 laptop running on XP pro service pack 2.

Honestly speaking, all i was doing was fixing the very popular realtek bug "no sound from external speaker or headphones" it has been widely discussed in a forum where this tick the front panel would premanently fix the problem. To be more brief the sound comes from the internal speaker but when it comes to headphones there is absolute no sound. I have searched almost everywhere, there is no genuine solution to this problem.

Update XP to Service Pack 3 and also download and install all the "missing" updates including any hardware updates, then we can continue...

Sorry but at the moment am not willing to upgrade my windows to service pack 3 just for the sake of fixing this bug and as far as the missing updates are concerned they are fully up to date so no problem there.

I've read somewhere that someone had similar problem and he tweaked some setting in the BIOS setup so that he could enable that option in the driver. I wanted to know if that's possible to do with my laptop and how?