5The Bluetooth Guide

Welcome to The Bluetooth Guide

This guide has blos­somed from a simple begin­ning to become the ‘net’s most extens­ive resource for Bluetooth help & inform­a­tion. Over 100 dif­fer­ent USB Dongles, PC Cards and laptop mod­els have now been suc­cess­fully setup with this guide. After fol­low­ing this guide you should be able to estab­lish com­mu­nic­a­tion between your PC and any Bluetooth 1.1 com­pli­ant device. Over 50 devices have already been suc­cess­fully tested.

Note: This guide was last updated in 2005! Links to the patch­er util­ity have been removed due to the threat of leg­al action by Broad­com Corp. The patch­er was ori­gin­ally released on GSM-For­um and I believe cop­ies of it may still be found there. To the best of my know­ledge the patch­er has­n’t been updated in a long time. This guide was writ­ten for a ver­sion of the Bluetooth drivers which are now very old. It was also writ­ten with Win­dows XP in mind and may not work with Win­dows Vista or Win­dows 7.

Who this guide is for

The pur­pose of this guide is to take you through a step by step pro­cess, at the end of which you should be able to estab­lish com­mu­nic­a­tion between your PC and any Bluetooth enabled device. This guide is based on the Wid­comm Bluetooth suite which only runs on Microsoft Win­dows. If you use a dif­fer­ent sys­tem, for example MacOS or Linux/Unix, this guide will not be able to provide you with a com­plete solu­tion but much of the inform­a­tion should be use­ful to you. I do not provide any kind of guar­an­tee that this will work for every single case, it is a free resource of inform­a­tion, and exists only to attempt to help people.

Recent updates

• Restored to full glory on DIY Media Home

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Credits

This guide would­n’t be what it is without the many con­tri­bu­tions I have received. Please help us to improve the guide still fur­ther! If you find any inac­curacies, please [int­link id=“1326” type=“page”]get in touch[/intlink]. If you have a device that isn’t lis­ted on the tested devices list please [int­link id=“1326” type=“page”]send an e‑mail[/intlink] so it can be added. If you have any sug­ges­tions, inform­a­tion, or new ideas that might help oth­ers please [int­link id=“1326” type=“page”]send them[/intlink]. Thanks.

I would like to thank the fol­low­ing people for their extens­ive con­tri­bu­tions: Phantasm4489, Bluetooth­Mas­ter, Lion_III, Derek Bartram, Chris Walk­er, Andrew Lord, Mark Aller­ton, Ray Hilton and all the con­trib­ut­ors to GSM-For­um.

What you can do if this guide doesn’t work

Don’t give up! There are often some dif­fi­culties get­ting everything to work cor­rectly, but with a little patience and care you’ll get it fixed. I have added a Fre­quently Asked Ques­tions sec­tion to the guide which can answer many ques­tions. If you’re still strug­gling try some of the fol­low­ing links before [int­link id=“1326” type=“page”]emailing me[/intlink]:
The F.A.Q. | Whizoo.com | PC-Counselor.com | Geekzone.co.nz | GSM-For­um | Howard For­ums | The Expansys For­um | Sock­et Forum

I’m lost already, where do I start?

Due to the sheer quant­ity of inform­a­tion con­tained, this guide is arranged across mul­tiple pages. There is a link at the bot­tom of each page to the next page of the guide. Before start­ing the main pro­ced­ure there are sev­er­al oth­er pages that every­one should read. Once you have read through this intro­duc­tion you should go to the next page…
[nex­t­page title=“Tested Devices”]

Tested Devices

If your devices are included in the alpha­bet­ic­al list below they have already been tested with the guide. If you have a device that is not included in the list you should attempt the install­a­tion pro­ced­ure anyway.
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[nex­t­page title=“Preparations”]

Preparations

Initial preparation

• Make sure you are logged onto Win­dows with a user account that has Admin­is­trat­ive rights.
• Dis­able anti-vir­us software.
• If you have a fire­wall run­ning on your PC, dis­able it.

Disconnect your device

If you have a USB or a PCMCIA / PC Card Bluetooth device, please dis­con­nect it.
If you have a laptop / note­book or oth­er device with Intern­al Bluetooth that can be “turned off” please turn it off.

Download and extract the files

Down­load the IBM Integ­rated Bluetooth II Soft­ware (Wid­comm build 1.4.3.4) from:
[ IBM FTP Site ] or [ IBM HTTP Mir­ror ] 20.34 Mb

Run the down­loaded file from IBM (called bthwxp1o.exe)

Click next, accept the license agree­ment, click next twice more and finally click finish.

The driver files have now been extrac­ted to C:\Drivers\WIN\BDCACT\

Down­load the latest device recog­ni­tion file from [ [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]Downloads[/intlink] ] 16 Kb

Save the file to the IBM drivers loc­a­tion (C:\Drivers\WIN\BDCACT\) and over­write the exist­ing file.

Down­load the patch­er from [ Jons Guides ] or [ Mir­ror 1 ] or [ Mir­ror 2 ] 221 Kb (patch­er removed, see [int­link id=“910” type=“page”]page 1[/intlink] for reas­ons and pos­sible altern­at­ive locations)

Save the patch­er some­where easy to access (for example, on the desktop).

Run the Patch­er (patch_v4.exe) to extract the files.
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Uninstall previous Bluetooth software

If you have pre­vi­ously installed any Bluetooth soft­ware you should unin­stall it before proceeding.

The fol­low­ing list is of soft­ware that should be unin­stalled, but it is not necesar­ily a com­plete list!

• Any pre­vi­ous Wid­comm software
• Any pre­vi­ous Soleil software
• Sony Bluespace software
• XTND­Con­nect Blue Man­ager software
• Microsoft Patch Q323183
• Any drivers that were sup­plied with your Bluetooth device
• Microsoft Intel­li­Type and Intel­li­Point soft­ware for Bluetooth mice & Keyboards.

[nex­t­page title=“Driver Installation”]

Driver Installation

Important information. Please read this before you start!

If you were dir­ec­ted here from anoth­er site please start at the begin­ning of the guide by read­ing the Intro­duc­tion. Also please let me know what site dir­ec­ted you to this page so I can ask them to update their links. If you haven’t read the pre­par­a­tion instruc­tions then please do that before start­ing the driver install­a­tion pro­ced­ure. If you don’t fol­low the pre­par­a­tion instruc­tions this pro­ced­ure will prob­ably fail! I can­’t guar­an­tee that this guide will work for you. If you are using a mis­sion crit­ic­al sys­tem I do not recom­mend pro­ceed­ing. I don’t recom­mend using Bluetooth with net­work serv­ers anyway!
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The driver installation procedure

1. Run C:\Drivers\Win\Patch\BTRegFix.reg
2. If you use a non-Eng­lish sys­tem:Copy the file setup.ini from C:\Drivers\Win\Patch\ to C:\Drivers\Win\BDCACT\ and over-write the exist­ing file.
3. Run C:\Drivers\Win\Bdcact\Setup.exe to start the driver installation
4. Click next, accept the license terms, next, next, install
5. If you are using Win­dows ME, XP or 2003 you will prob­ably be promp­ted with a “Driver Sig­na­ture Notice”. If you are promp­ted, click OK.
6. Click Fin­ish to com­plete setup.
7. If you are promp­ted to reboot please reboot. If you are promp­ted to reboot and don’t, the patch­er may not be able to patch the files!
8. Run C:\Drivers\Win\Patch\BTWPatcher.exe
9. Click on the apply but­ton to patch the drivers. If the patch­er can­not com­plete the patch, please reboot into safe­mode and re-run the patcher.
10. If you have a PC Card, extract the con­tents of the file data1.cab to the main install­a­tion dir­ect­ory. Over-write all files
11. If you have a 3Com Wire­less Bluetooth PC Card ver­sion 3.0 (3CRWB6096B) down­load the device recog­ni­tion file for the card from [ [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]Downloads[/intlink] ]and save the file to the install­a­tion directory
12. If you have dis­con­nec­ted your Bluetooth device (as instruc­ted in the pre­par­a­tions) you should now con­nect it
13. Win­dows will prob­ably install new hard­ware. Wait until the hard­ware install­a­tion is complete.
14. Restart your computer.
15. If you have a Microsoft Bluetooth key­board or mouse please read the MS Input Devices section
16. If you use a laptop or note­book that uses pro­pri­et­ary soft­ware to “turn on” an intern­al Bluetooth device, please read the Intern­al Devices section.

After the installation

Look for the Bluetooth icon in the sys­tem tray at the bot­tom right and if it is white with a blue back­ground ( ) then you have suc­cess­fully com­pleted the driver install­a­tion. If the icon isn’t present or is red with a blue back­ground ( ) then you should read the “What to do if it did­n’t work” sec­tion below. If you suc­ceed and you have any devices not lis­ted on the Tested Devices page, please let me know that they work! (see the about page for how to [int­link id=“1326” type=“page”]contact me[/intlink]).

What to do if it didn’t work

Don’t pan­ic, as I said in the intro­duc­tion, “There are often some dif­fi­culties get­ting everything to work cor­rectly, but with a little patience and care you’ll get it fixed.”

• Check that you fol­lowed the pre­par­a­tion instruc­tions correctly.
• Double check that you did­n’t make any mis­takes in the above procedure
• Read the Troubleshoot­ing section.
• Read the F.A.Q. and see if your prob­lem is lis­ted there.
• Try some of the oth­er resources lis­ted on the introduction.
• If you’ve tried all the above and still haven’t got any­where then please [int­link id=“1326” type=“page”]contact me[/intlink].

When everything is working

When everything is work­ing I sug­gest you read the soft­ware sec­tion for inform­a­tion on how to setup some of the more pop­u­lar applic­a­tions. I have details of how to setup and use Logo­Man­ager, Nokia PC Suite, Floats Mobile Agent, and Oxy­gen Phone Man­ager. The Wid­comm drivers also have many func­tions and fea­tures built in that you can use.

[nex­t­page title=“Software”]

Software

There are many dif­fer­ent soft­ware suites avail­able for com­mu­nic­a­tions between Mobile Phones and your PC. I have writ­ten brief setup guides for the most pop­u­lar suites.

Nokia PC Suite 4.88 installation on Windows XP / 2003

• Nokia PC Suite is avail­able from Nokia.
• Install Nokia PC Suite
• Enable Bluetooth on your phone
• Open “My Bluetooth Places” from the desktop
• Click “View Devices In Range” or “Find Bluetooth Devices”
• Right Click on the phone that appears
• Pair the device.
• Enter any passcode of your choice.
• Enter the same code on the phone
• Double click on the phone icon (this will dis­cov­er avail­able services)
• Double click on “Nokia PC Suite on…” To con­nect this service
• Right click on “Nokia PC Suite on…” and select properties
• Check which seri­al port it is using (in my example it uses COM5)
• Close this window
• Double click on the Nokia PC Suite icon in the sys­tem tray
• Click on blue dia­mond but­ton if it isn’t already selected
• Click on “Nokia Bluetooth Phone”
• Click apply
• In the win­dow that appears choose the com port that you found earli­er (mine was COM5)
• Click “con­nect”
• Click ok to close the Nokia window
• Suc­cess! You can now use the PC Suite pro­grams found on the start menu

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LogoManager installation on Windows XP / 2003

• Logo­man­ager is avail­able from LogoManager.co.uk
• Install Logo­Man­ager (I am using ver­sion 1.30 in this example)
• Enable Bluetooth on your phone
• Open “My Bluetooth Places” from the desktop
• Click “View Devices In Range” or “Find Bluetooth Devices”
• Right Click on the phone that appears
• Pair the device.
• Enter any passcode of your choice.
• Enter the same code on the phone
• Double click on the phone icon (this will dis­cov­er avail­able services)
• Double click on “Nokia PC Suite on…” To con­nect this service
• Right click on “Nokia PC Suite on…” and select properties
• Check which seri­al port it is using (in my example it uses COM5)
• Close this window
• Load Logo­Man­ager
• Open Tools: Options
• Click the “Change” but­ton at the top
• Select the following:Connection Type = “Seri­al Cable“Cable Type = “Bluetooth Seri­al Port“COM Port = The port you made a note of earli­er (in my example COM5)
• Click OK
• Suc­cess! Your Logo­Man­ager should now show that it is connected

F.M.A. installation on Windows XP / 2003

• Float’s Mobile Agent is avail­able from Source­Forge
• Install Float’s Mobile Agent (I am using ver­sion 0.10.31b in this example)
• Enable Bluetooth on your phone
• Open “My Bluetooth Places” from the desktop
• Click “View Devices In Range” or “Find Bluetooth Devices”
• Right Click on the phone that appears
• Pair the device.
• Enter any passcode of your choice.
• Enter the same code on the phone
• Double click on the phone icon (this will dis­cov­er avail­able services)
• Double click on “Com1 on …”
• The soft­ware should con­nect and tell you which COM port is con­figured for the ser­vice (in my example it is com3)
• Load F.M.A.
• Open Tools: Options
• Select “use seri­al port” and set the port to the one that was con­figured about (com3 in my example)
• Click “ok”
• Click on the con­nect button
• Suc­cess!

Oxygen Phone Manager II installation on Windows XP / 2003

• Oxy­gen Phone Man­ager is avail­able from Oxy­gen Software
• Install Oxy­gen Phone Manager
• Enable Bluetooth on your phone
• Open “My Bluetooth Places” from the desktop
• Click “View Devices In Range” or “Find Bluetooth Devices”
• Right Click on the phone that appears
• Pair the device.
• Enter any passcode of your choice.
• Enter the same code on the phone
• Double click on the phone icon (this will dis­cov­er avail­able services)
• Double click on “Nokia PC Suite …”
• The soft­ware should con­nect and tell you which COM port is con­figured for the ser­vice (im my example it is com5)
• Load OPM II
• Open “Options” from the “Tools” menu
• Select the top option “Con­nec­tion & Common”
• Click the “add” but­ton at the top right
• From the pull down list that appears select “COM X (Bluetooth Com­mu­nic­a­tions Port)” where X is the num­ber of the COM port you noted earli­er (my example was 5)
• Click “OK”
• Suc­cess!

Links to Software Suites

• Sony-Eric­sson PC Suite for the P800 / P900
• Logo­Man­ager for Nokia Phones
• Float’s Mobile Agent
• Oxy­gen Phone Man­ager II for Nokia Phones
• Oxy­gen Phone Man­ager II for Sym­bi­an OS Phones
• Nokia PC Suite 4.88 for the 6310i / ⁶³¹⁰⁄₈₉₁₀
• Nokia PC Suite for the 6250
• Nokia PC Suite 1.10 for the 6600
• Nokia PC Suite 1.20 for the 7650
• Nokia PC Suite 3.0 for the 3650
• Nokia PC Suite for the ³⁶²⁰⁄₃₆₆₀
• Nokia PC Suite 16.04 for the N‑Gage
• Nokia PC Suite 6.20 for the ⁶²³⁰⁄₆₂₆₀ / ⁶⁶⁵⁰⁄₆₈₁₀ / ⁶⁸²⁰⁄₇₆₀₀ / 7610 / 8910i

[nex­t­page title=“Networking”]

Networking

Bluetooth Personal Area Networks

The Bluetooth spe­cific­a­tion sup­ports the use of Bluetooth for net­work­ing between devices.
If you have a PC with a Bluetooth adaptor and a Bluetooth enabled PDA, laptop,
or oth­er device that sup­por­ted net­work­ing, you should use the fol­low­ing inform­a­tion to set up a net­work connection.
Net­work con­nec­tions between a PC and anoth­er device can be used for file and print shar­ing, and also for Inter­net access.
A typ­ic­al example of a Bluetooth PAN would be if you have a Bluetooth enabled desktop PC with broad­band access,
and a laptop with Bluetooth sup­port you can turn your desktop PC into a W.A.P. (wire­less access point)
and use the Inter­net access on your laptop without a need for wires.

The setup of a Bluetooth PAN is depend­ent upon your exist­ing con­fig­ur­a­tion, below are sev­er­al options…

• Bluetooth net­work­ing for file and print shar­ing only
• Provid­ing Inter­net access to anoth­er device from a PC with a dir­ect Inter­net connection
• Provid­ing Inter­net access to anoth­er device from a PC that has Inter­net access through anoth­er net­work (e.g. a cor­por­ate LAN)

If you need more detailed or spe­cif­ic inform­a­tion than I have provided, there are some oth­er excel­lent guides for spe­cif­ic plat­forms available

• If you have a Palm, you can go to Whizoo.com
• If you have an iPaq, you can go to PC-Counselor.com
• If you are net­work­ing between 2 PC’s there is more inform­a­tion avail­able at GeekZone.co.nz

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Setting up a Bluetooth Personal Area Network for File & Print Sharing

• Make sure you have fully fol­lowed the main guide
• Pair the devices
• Open the con­fig­ur­a­tion options on the primary PC
• Select the “loc­al ser­vices” tab
• Choose “net­work access” and click on “prop­er­ties”
• Make sure it is set to “start-up auto­mat­ic­ally”, and change the pull down option to “allow oth­er devices to access the Internet/LAN via this computer”
• If the device you want to con­nect FROM does not sup­port Bluetooth secur­ity prop­erly you need to down­load and run the Dis­able Net­work Secur­ity Registry Frag­ment from the down­loads page
• Make sure that the Bluetooth net­work con­nec­tion is enabled on both devices
• Share the rel­ev­ant folders or print­ers on the main PC
• Con­nect the net­work access option the same way as any oth­er Bluetooth service
• If you want to share files, folders, or print­ers in both dir­ec­tions you should carry out the above pro­ced­ure on both PC’s

Setting up a Bluetooth Personal Area Network for Internet Connection Sharing

This meth­od of Inter­net access shar­ing will only work when the host PC has a dir­ect Inter­net con­nec­tion. The host PC must be using Win­dows Me, 2000, XP or 2003 because it uses Inter­net Con­nec­tion Sharing

• Make sure you have fully fol­lowed the main guide
• Pair the devices
• Open the con­fig­ur­a­tion options on the primary PC
• Select the “loc­al ser­vices” tab
• Choose “net­work access” and click on “prop­er­ties”
• Make sure it is set to “start-up auto­mat­ic­ally”, and change the pull down option to “allow oth­er devices to access the Internet/LAN via this computer”
• If the device you want to con­nect FROM does not sup­port Bluetooth secur­ity prop­erly you need to down­load and run the Dis­able Net­work Secur­ity Registry Frag­ment from the down­loads page
• Click on the “con­nec­tion shar­ing but­ton and if read the help file if you need more information
• Make sure that the Bluetooth net­work con­nec­tion is enabled on both devices
• Share the rel­ev­ant folders or print­ers on the main PC
• Con­nect the net­work access option the same way as any oth­er Bluetooth service
• If you want to share files, folders, or print­ers in both dir­ec­tions you should carry out the above pro­ced­ure on both PC’s

Setting up a Bluetooth Personal Area Network for Internet Connection Sharing

This meth­od of Inter­net access shar­ing will only work when the host PC has Inter­net access through a LAN. The host PC must be run­ning Win­dows 2000, XP or 2003 because it uses a Net­work Bridge

• Make sure you have fully fol­lowed the main guide
• Pair the devices
• Open the con­fig­ur­a­tion options on the primary PC
• Select the “loc­al ser­vices” tab
• Choose “net­work access” and click on “prop­er­ties”
• Make sure it is set to “start-up auto­mat­ic­ally”, and change the pull down option to “allow oth­er devices to access the Internet/LAN via this computer”
• If the device you want to con­nect FROM does not sup­port Bluetooth secur­ity prop­erly you need to down­load and run down­load and run the Dis­able Net­work Secur­ity Registry Frag­ment from the down­loads page
• Open the “Net­work Con­nec­tions” con­trol panel
• Select your primary LAN con­nec­tion (usu­ally called “Loc­al Area Net­work”), and then, hold­ing con­trol, also select your Bluetooth net­work con­nec­tion (usu­ally called “Bluetooth Network”)
• Right click on either of the selec­ted con­nec­tions, and choose “Bridge Connections”
• Make sure that the Bluetooth net­work con­nec­tion is enabled on both devices
• Share the rel­ev­ant folders or print­ers on the main PC
• Con­nect the net­work access option the same way as any oth­er Bluetooth service
• If you want to share files, folders, or print­ers in both dir­ec­tions you should carry out the above pro­ced­ure on both PC’s

[nex­t­page title=“Troubleshooting”]

Troubleshooting

Driver Problems

It didn’t work: The first things to double check

• If you have an icon in the sys­tem tray that is white on a blue back­ground ( ) then you should skip the inform­a­tion on this page — your driver is cor­rectly installed already!
• Check that you fol­lowed the pre­par­a­tion instruc­tions correctly.
• Double check that you did­n’t make any mis­takes in the main procedure.
• If run­ning the patch­er pro­duced an error, reboot into safe­mode and run the patch­er again
• If you wer­en’t logged on as a user with Admin­is­trat­or rights, try the pro­ced­ure again with an account that does
• If you have anti-vir­us soft­ware run­ning dis­able it and retry the procedure
• If you have a fire­wall installed on your PC make sure that the Wid­comm Bluetooth soft­ware has unres­tric­ted access — remem­ber, Bluetooth is a net­work­ing technology!
• If you are using a laptop / note­book with an Intern­al device that came with pro­pri­et­ary soft­ware, read the Intern­al devices section.
• If you did­n’t reboot after run­ning the patch­er, please do so now

The list above didn’t help and your device is a PC Card (PCMCIA)

Some PC Cards are a little tricky to loc­ate a driver for. Read the PC Cards section.

It still doesn’t work

It is pos­sible that Win­dows installed anoth­er driver for you device (such as the Microsoft driver) instead of the Wid­comm driver. Read the Manu­al Install section.

It still doesn’t work and your device is a USB device and is NOT listed on the Tested Devices section

It is pos­sible that your device is not included in the list of devices that the drivers can recog­nise by default. Read the New USB Devices section.
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It still doesn’t work

• Try remov­ing everything Bluetooth related from the com­puter, and try the pro­ced­ure right through from the begin­ning again.
• Read the F.A.Q.

MS Input Devices

The Microsoft Intelli-Drivers mess

Many people have advised me to avoid Intel­li­Type 5.0 and Intel­li­Point 5.0 drivers like the plague. Unfor­tu­nately, installing the Intelli drivers from the Microsoft CD will install Microsoft Bluetooth drivers, which break the Wid­comm driver install­a­tion. Without the Intelli drivers you will not be able to use the extra but­tons on your key­board or mouse. The solu­tion? Install an older Intelli driver! All the oth­er wire­less key­boards and mice pro­duced by Microsoft have the same or very sim­il­ar addi­tion­al keys to the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard.

Where to get the older Intelli Drivers

Find them on the [ [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]Downloads[/intlink] ] page

Internal Devices

Laptop’s with Proprietary Software

Some laptops require their own soft­ware installed as well as the Wid­comm drivers. Toshiba, and Sony both pro­duce Bluetooth enabled laptops that have a soft­ware “switch” to dis­able or enable Bluetooth. If your device isn’t detec­ted after the main install­a­tion you may need to install the ori­gin­al software.

Installing Toshiba’s proprietary Bluetooth software

• Down­load the Toshiba Bluetooth Mon­it­or soft­ware from Toshiba 4.18 Mb
• Extract the Toshiba soft­ware to a tem­por­ary folder and copy the fol­low­ing files to the fol­low­ing locations:

• Open “Device Man­ager”, and unin­stall all of the Toshiba Bluetooth Devices which can be found in the “Bluetooth”, “USB”, “Ports”, and “Net­work” sections.
• Use “Add/Remove Pro­grams” to unin­stall the Toshiba Bluetooth software
• Reboot
• Run C:\Toshiba\MS_Bluetooth\BtMonInst.exe
• Right click on the Bluetooth Mon­it­or in the sys­tem tray, and select “Power > ON”
• Win­dows should now install Devices. Your Bluetooth Sys­tem Tray should turn white.

If the sys­tem tray does­n’t turn blue and white you may still have a Toshiba / Microsoft driver installed. You should read the Manu­al Install section.

Manual Install

Manual Driver Installation

The manu­al driver install­a­tion should only be attemp­ted after the Wid­comm soft­ware has been installed. The descrip­tion below describes how to replace the Microsoft driver with the Wid­comm driver. If the Microsoft driver isn’t present you will not be able to com­plete the fol­low­ing pro­ced­ure. If you have a PC Card you should have already read the PC Cards sec­tion. The meth­od for doing a manu­al driver update is dif­fer­ent on dif­fer­ent ver­sions of Win­dows, please use the pro­ced­ure that cor­res­ponds to your ver­sion of Windows

Windows XP / 2003 forced manual driver installation

1. Open the sys­tem con­trol pan­el, and in the “Hard­ware” tab, and click on “Device Manager”
2. Expand the “Bluetooth Radi­os” sec­tion of the device list
3. There might be a “Microsoft Bluetooth Enu­mer­at­or” and anoth­er device listed
4. Double click on the oth­er device, and in the “driver” tab, click on “update driver”
5. Select “Install from a list or spe­cif­ic location”
6. Select “Don’t search, I will choose the driver to install”
7. Click on “Have disk”
8. Type in “C:\Drivers\Win\BDCACT”
9. Click OK
10. There should be 1 single device listed
11. Click Next
12. Click OK
13. The sys­tem tray icon should now be white & blue. If it isn’t, reboot your PC.

PC Cards

My PC Card didn’t find a driver

• Did you carry out part 10 of the main instructions?
• Have you read the Manu­al Driver Install­a­tion instructions?
• If you have a 3Com PC Card, see below

I have a 3Com PC Card

I have a cus­tom driver file avail­able for ver­sion 3 of the 3Com PC Card. Down­load it from the [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]Downloads[/intlink] page and save it to the main install­a­tion folder (C:\Drivers\WIN\BDCACT\). If you have a ver­sion 2 card, I do not cur­rently know a meth­od of installing these. A firm­ware update may be possible.

New USB Devices

My USB Device wasn’t found…

Every USB device has a VID (Vendor I.D.) and PID (Product I.D.). If your device was­n’t found it is pos­sible that it’s ID is not lis­ted in the Wid­comm driver. The Wid­comm drivers will only install for devices they recog­nise, and they recog­nise devices based on their VID and PID. The install­a­tion file btwusb.inf con­tains a list of USB VIDs and PIDs that the drivers will recog­nise. All USB devices will work with the Wid­comm stack, but the ID’s for some of them are not included with the drivers. If your device is not included you will need to add it.

The major­ity of note­books / laptops with intern­al Bluetooth use an intern­al USB solu­tion. If you have a note­book / laptop and are exper­i­en­cing prob­lems get­ting the driver work­ing, you should read this sec­tion, even if you don’t have an actu­al USB dongle to plug in.

How to find the VID and PID of a device

This meth­od will enable you to find the VID and PID for your USB Bluetooth hard­ware before it has a driver installed.

• Con­nect your Bluetooth dongle, and let Win­dows add it as an “Unknown device”
• Open “sys­tem inform­a­tion” from start/programs/accessories/system tools/system information
• Expand “Com­pon­ents”
• Select “USB”
• Loc­ate the device in the list
• It will have an ID in the fol­low­ing form: USB\VID_XXXX&PID_YYYY\ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
• Make a note of the VID (the XXXX) and the PID (the YYYY)

How to update your driver with the VID and PID of your USB Dongle

This ser­vice is no longer func­tion­al, sorry

• Fill in the form below with the details of your device.
• After you have suc­cess­fully sub­mit­ted your device details, right click >here and select “save tar­get as”.
• Save the file into the install­a­tion dir­ect­ory (C:\Drivers\WIN\BDCACT\). Over­write the old file.
• Remove your USB Dongle.
• Restart Win­dows.
• Re-insert the dongle.
• If Win­dows prompts you for a driver, point it to C:\Drivers\WIN\BDCACT\
• If you are not promp­ted for a driver and the sys­tem tray icon remains red you may need to start the install­a­tion pro­ced­ure again from the begin­ning using the new file.

Devices already supported

Uninstallation

How to uninstall Widcomm drivers

The Wid­comm drivers should have a nor­mal add/remove option in the con­trol pan­el, regard­less of who sup­plied them. If your install­a­tion has become dam­aged, and for some reas­on you can­not use the nor­mal unin­stall­a­tion meth­od, the details below should help you remove the Wid­comm drivers from your system.

The procedure

• Make a back-up of your sys­tem registry
• Run “regsvr32 ‑u BtNeighborhood.dll”
• Run “btstackserver.exe /unregserver”
• Run reged­it and delete the WIDCOMM key from HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
• Delete “bt*.dll”, “btcpl.cpl”, and “bt*.manifest” from your sys­tem folder (this var­ies depend­ing on which ver­sion of Win­dows you are using)

[nex­t­page title=“F.A.Q.”]

F.A.Q.

Windows didn’t find a driver for my device

There are sev­er­al pos­sible causes of this problem.

1. The VID and PID of your device are not in the btwusb.inf file. Have a look at the VID and PID list page for more information.

2. You have a “Microsoft Driver” Infec­tion. Have a read of the Manu­al Driver Install­a­tion page

3. Your device is faulty. Try the ori­gin­al driver that came with the device. If that fails then you need a new piece of hardware.

4. You are not using a USB dongle. I’m not quite sure yet how these work, there may be issues. [int­link id=“1326” type=“page”]Get in touch[/intlink] with me.

I can’t customise the buttons on my Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer for Bluetooth

See the Microsoft Input sec­tion of the Driver Install­a­tion page.

I get the error “There was a problem installing this hardware. An error occurred during the installation of this device. The required section was not found in the inf”

If you are con­nec­ted to the Inter­net, Win­dows will some­times try to update your driver from Win­dowsUp­date online. Make sure you are dis­con­nec­ted from the ‘net and try again. You may need to do a manu­al driver installation.

I get the error “There was a problem installing this hardware. An error occurred during the installation of this device. The system cannot find the file specified”

Try dis­con­nect­ing from the Inter­net (as detailed above). You may need to do a manu­al driver installation.

My Nokia phone wont connect or keeps disconnecting

You may not have new enough firm­ware. This is a par­tic­u­larly com­mon prob­lem with the Nokia 6310i. You need to read the Nokia firm­ware inform­a­tion page. If your soft­ware is try­ing to con­nect on “COM0” you need to change the set­tings (see ques­tion: The driver install­a­tion works cor­rectly, but when I try to use the seri­al port ser­vice it tries to con­nect on “COM0” and fails)

I am using a bluetooth keyboard and I keep getting a pop up when I press the capslock key or the numlock key

Down­load and run the Key Indic­a­tion registry frag­ment from the [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]Downloads[/intlink] page

My device appears to have a VID and PID of 0000 0000

Replace your device. It’s broken.
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I get the error “Your bluetooth software license does not include use with this Bluetooth device. [6]”

The file patch­er did­n’t patch the 3 files cor­rectly. Rerun it in safe mode.

My iPaq drops the connection to my PC regularly

I don’t have a solu­tion to this yet. I think it is a prob­lem with the iPaq soft­ware / firm­ware. If any­one knows of a solu­tion please [int­link id=“1326” type=“page”]get in touch[/intlink] with me.

The driver installation is asking for a licence.dat

Either your down­load and extrac­tion of the drivers was cor­rup­ted, or you have not run the .reg file included with the patched files pri­or to run­ning the main setup. You can try point­ing the request to “C:\Drivers\Win\Bdcact” (where you extrac­ted the IBM drivers), but it is prob­ably bet­ter to start the guide again from the beginning.

I am using bluetooth to connect my PC to my mobile phone so that I can use my phone to access the Internet. Internet access seems very slow

First gen­er­a­tion Bluetooth sup­ports 1Mbit con­nec­tions which is twice as fast as most broad­band Inter­net con­nec­tions. Second gen­er­a­tion Bluetooth devices should work at up to 2Mbits. The prob­lem is with the mobile phone, not Bluetooth. Many phones only sup­port 9.6.KBit. Most will not work faster than 28.8KBit. You’ll have to wait for 3G net­works for fast Inter­net access through your mobile.

Eveything works but I get an icon in the system tray that says “Bluetooth Network — A Network Cable Is Unplugged”

This is nor­mal. The bluetooth drivers install sup­port for net­work­ing. If the icon both­ers you then open the “Net­work Con­nec­tions” folder and dis­able the “Bluetooth Net­work” connection.

My Dial-up and Fax Services don’t work after I have installed Bluetooth on Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 system

You need to unin­stall and rein­stall the Fax and Dial-Up ser­vices. This can be done in add/remove programs/windows com­pon­ents, BUT by default many of the win­dows com­pon­ents are hid­den, includ­ing the Fax and DUN ser­vices. To show ALL of the win­dows com­pon­ents that can be selec­ted you need to carry out the fol­low­ing procedure:

• Open note­pad or a sim­il­ar text editor
• Open the file C:\Windows\inf\sysoc.inf
• Do a search and replace, and replace ‚hide, with „
• Save sysoc.inf

Please note: Some of the com­pon­ents take a long time to “untick” after you click on them. When you deselect the com­pon­ents you wish to rein­stall you will have to wait 10–15 seconds and then move the scroll­bar at the right hand side, and the tick should disappear.

My Sony-Ericsson R520m keeps disabling Bluetooth

I believe this is a prob­lem with the R520m, which will hope­fully be fixed with new firm­ware. I recom­mend con­tact­ing Sony-Eric­sson if you exper­i­ence this prob­lem. Until a firm­ware update becomes avail­able you can try switch­ing the phone off and back on, or using the “Mas­ter Reset” option.

I am trying to use a Compaq Multiport with a Microsoft Mouse and the response time is very slow

This is a firm­ware issue. Com­paq don’t cur­rently sup­ply updated firm­ware, but it can be resolved by flash­ing the Mul­ti­port with the firm­ware update from TDK for their USB BT adapter

The driver installation works correctly, but when I try to use the serial port service it tries to connect on “COM0” and fails

Right click on the sys­tem tray icon and select open the con­fig­ur­a­tion options. Under the loc­al ser­vices tab click on “Add Seri­al Device” and fol­low the steps to add a new device. Under the “Cli­ent Applic­a­tions” tab click on “Add COM Port” and fol­low the steps. The names you use for the ser­vices do not mat­ter. Use this port instead of the default port.

I have a networking device that will not accept secure connections (there are some Bluetooth routers with this problem)

Down­load and run the Net­work Secur­ity registry frag­ment from the [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]Downloads[/intlink] page

I’m having problems getting my D‑Link DBT-120 to install

There are known firm­ware issues with the D‑Link dongles. Down­load an updated firm­ware from the [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]Downloads[/intlink] page and use the Firm­ware update pro­gram included with the Wid­comm drivers to update your dongle.

I get the following error: “no local bluetooth device detected”

You must manu­ally check that ALL of the fol­low­ing drivers have been updated the the ver­sion that you have installed. Check the fol­low­ing devices in device man­ager: the bluetooth device itself, all bluetooth com ports (there are usu­ally 2 of these), bluetooth net­work “card”, Bluetooth Audio

The Mrouter software does not see any Known or Unknown devices and refresh has no effect

If you have an intern­al modem that is using a COM port, use device man­ager to dis­able it, try using mrouter again, and once it has come to life, re-enable the modem

[nex­t­page title=“Advanced”]

Advanced

Advanced Information

This is the sec­tion for those of you who would con­sider them­selves “tech­ies”. Any­one who does­n’t know what they’re doing should­n’t go any further.
I will not be held respons­ible for any­thing you break as a res­ult of read­ing the advanced section!

In this sec­tion there are details of how the pro­ced­ure works. There are also oth­er use­ful resources, includ­ing inform­a­tion on firm­ware for Nokia phones, and for USB devices. I have also included a com­plete file archive of all the use­ful Bluetooth related util­it­ies that I have.

The registry fragment

The registry frag­ment adds a single line into the registry. It is not neces­sary for many con­fig­ur­a­tions, but does­n’t cause any prob­lems, and gets over-writ­ten by the install­a­tion anyway
The line added is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Widcomm\BTConfig\Services\0004\AcceptOther which is a DWORD equal to 1

The newer btwusb.inf

I have added many device VID and PID com­bin­a­tions into the btwusb.inf file to add sup­port for those devices. The device sub­mis­sion page auto­mat­ic­ally updates the file with new devices.
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The file patcher

The file patch­er patches 3 files: wbtapi.dll, bttray.exe and btstackserver.exe. It car­ries out the same 2 oper­a­tions on each file. Doing this enables the soft­ware to work with Win­dows 2003, and also enables the soft­ware to work with all devices. For the IBM drivers the 2 edits are as follows:
The hex string 3B F5 75 0E 3B FD 75 0A is replaced by 3B F5 90 90 3B FD 90 90
The hex string 83 C4 04 85 F6 0F 85 1F 01 00 00 is replaced with 83 C4 04 85 F6 90 90 90 90 90 90
The strings dif­fer between ver­sions but are usu­ally quite sim­il­ar, and using wild­cards the new patch­er can patch most versions.

Nokia Bluetooth Phones: Firmware updates often required!

Sev­er­al Nokia phones require firm­ware updates before they will sup­port Bluetooth cor­rectly. You can check your firm­ware revi­sion by typ­ing *#0000# on the phone’s keypad.

Minimum required firmware versions

Nokia 6310i: 5.50

Nokia 6230: 3.15

You can take your phone to a Nokia licensed repair shop and they will update the firm­ware for you for free as long as the phone is still with­in its Nokia war­ranty peri­od. Be warned that I know of at least 1 case where a firm­ware update has caused the loss of all per­son­al­ised inform­a­tion stored on the phone. I strongly advise that you make a copy of any import­ant data from your phone before hav­ing it updated.

USB Device Firmware

Sev­er­al people have asked about firm­ware updates for USB Bluetooth devices. Wid­comm used to sup­ply an updated firm­ware with their drivers, but new­er ver­sions have not come with an update. I have a gen­er­ic CSR Firm­ware that you can down­load if you think you NEED it. It is dated 31^st-March-2004, and includes CSR’s HID sup­port that allows the use of Bluetooth Key­boards and Mice before the OS has loaded (for example allows the use of a Bluetooth key­board to modi­fy BIOS options). The Wid­comm drivers are sup­plied with a firm­ware update util­ity for most devices, includ­ing CSR devices.

WARNING: Use this firm­ware update at your own risk!!

Down­load the update file from the [int­link id=“741” type=“page”]Downloads[/intlink] page.