itunes not showing speaker choice for airport

Greetings the collective Guru`s!.

Running itunes on a windows laptop (win 10 upgraded from win 7) & have been for years. Also been running Apple TV & Airport express from the same laptop for the same amount of time. All good & extremely happy with it all. You just know there is a BUT coming dont you.....

Went to use the airport express the other day & all seemed well until i looked for the speaker selection button at the top left of the screen. GONE!

Does anyone know of a simple fix for this? maybe settings? or so i just need to beat it with a big stick until it shows a white flag & starts to co-opperate.

Many thanks in advance all.