SheerBoredom.net

It seems like almost every Bluetooth adapter available uses its own proprietary junk software that doesn't work. The new Kensington Bluetooth 2.0 USB adapter that I bought is no different. Well this got me to wondering, why install extra software? Why have extra programs boot up and run in the background when Windows has all of this already running? Well the simple answer is to use Windows Bluetooth stack to run your adapter. But how to do this is the real question. After digging around online I found this handy little hack to get Bluetooth working the way it should the first time it was plugged in.

Using the Microsoft Bluetooth Stack (instead of WIDCOMM) on Windows XP w/ SP2

I recently purchased a Kensington USB Bluetooth adapter, and wanted to use it on my laptop to connect to cell phone to upload ring tones from my computer. I remember reading that the newly released Service Pack 2 for Windows XP had Bluetooth support (stack) built in.

This means that all you should have to do is plug in your USB Bluetooth adapter, a Bluetooth icon should appear in the control panel, and you should be on your way! Well, that would be nice, but after some research I found that the xpsp2 Bluetooth support was only for adapters that had WHQL certified drivers. According to Microsoft, only a handful of these adapters were supported by the built in Windows XP (WHQL) driver.

The drivers that came with my Kensington adapter were WIDCOMM drivers.

Unfortunately these drivers are not WHQL certified, and cannot use the XP(sp2) built in Bluetooth stack. You must instead install the WIDCOMM Bluetooth stack, which seemed to work ok for me, but if Windows has this built in, why not use it? Besides, I hate installing extra software that I don't need!

So I got started looking for a WHQL certified driver for the Kensington adapter. Well, to make this short, they don't exist (not that I could find at least). I did find newer WIDCOMM drivers though on Logitech's website, but they were still not WHQL certified, and therefore can not use the XP Bluetooth stack.

After going back and reading the list of Bluetooth adapters support by XP, I noticed the PnPID's listed next to each device. So I figured, why not just add the Kensington PnPID to the built in drivers inf file, and see if the built in drivers will work?/

After locating the proper inf file: %windir%/inf/bth.inf

I opened it in notepad, read through it a little bit, and saw that there wasn't anything specific for each of the different manufactures devices. So on about line 60, under one of the device sections, I added my USB adapters PnPID like so:

Now, you may ask, well how did I know my adapters PnPID?

After inserting the Bluetooth adapter into one of the computers USB ports, Windows will ask to install drivers for it, and it won’t be able to find any drivers for the device, and it will simply add the adapter to device manager as "USB Device" with a small yellow exclamation point under it. Well if you go into the device manager, double-click on the "USB Device" and look at the details tab, you will notice that in the drop down menu, there is an option called "Hardware Ids". Select this option, and in the area below will appear that devices Hardware (or PnPID) Ids. You need to copy one of those strings EXACTLY from that area, into the bth.inf file.

After that, delete the "USB Device" from device manager, and un-plug, and re-plug the Bluetooth adapter into your computer system. When prompted, let Windows search for a device driver, and it should pick up the adapter, and install the correct drivers for it. Also, there should now be an icon in the control panel for Bluetooth configuration.

Now, since I had already installed the adapter using the WIDCOMM drivers, I had to repeat the above steps, except instead of "USB Device" in device manager, I saw a "MSI USB Bluetooth Device" that had to be deleted.

Note: Original article was submitted without credit to the original author. The original article can be found at: http://hellalame.com/bluetooth.htm

Trackback(0)

Comments (7)

ohgod...

i hope this is right help for my vkb... can't get it work..

loton , April 04, 2009 | url

• 
• +1
• 
• 

Automated installation of bluetooth

There is a nice freeware utility, which do all the job of finding hardware ID and patching bth.inf automatically.
Download it at http://bluetoothinstaller.com/

Jonas , November 23, 2009 | url

• 
• +2
• 
• 

Awesome App

Thanks for the link Jonas, that app really helps make the install alot easier. I'm gonna try it out on a couple machines and probably make a new article!

iamlost456 , November 24, 2009

• 
• +2
• 
• 

Nice

Thanks for the tutorial, and that patching application Jonas mentioned is also incredibly easy to run. I'm glad so many other people are abandoning the WIDCOMM software that comes with Kensington's USB dongle after suffering for so long as well, thought I was alone for a minute.

Chris , November 28, 2009

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Excellent Tool

Thx Jonas for that link. I spent hours to get my Nokia N97 connected to a Dell Notebook via Toshiba Bluetooth Stack and it doesn't work.
I found several tipps to delete this stack and use MS BT Stack, but none of this how-to-do's worked. With that tool it was done in 5 minutes, my N97
is connected. Great.

frankenr1 , December 16, 2009

• 
• +0
• 
• 

wow

Nice Job! I've spent a month trying to get the VKB to work, this thing and about 2 minutes was all it took in the end. Now I know to stay clear of wincomm.

C , January 28, 2010

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Thanks!!

Please, marry me!!!

It only took me two minutes to fix the damn thing. You're great.

Regards from the Basque Country.

(BTW, I'm a man )

Eb2Fea , February 01, 2010

• 
• +0
• 
• 

Write comment

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment Preview