Vista Upgrade Killed my Bluetooth - Help

[Peter Caplan]

Hi All

What gives - I downloaded an optional update for Windows Vista via
Microsofts Vista Upgrade - IVT Corporation - Other Hardware - Microsoft
Bluetooth Device. After installation all my bluetooth devices stopped
working!

On inspecting the device Manager A new Bluetooth USB Devices category had
been installed (with Microsoft Bluetooth Device) but the existing Bluetooth
Radio Devices Category had been removed along with the Microsoft Bluetooth
Transceiver and Microsoft Bluetooth Enumerator and hence all the othe
bluetooth networking and peripheral components that are dependant on the
enumerator. Whats going on.

I was able to delete the newly installed Device and bring back all the old
stuff but this update seems pretty disasterous to me.

Can anybody throw any light on what is going on here!

Regards - Peter Caplan

 

[Guest]

how did you fix it? i have no idea of how to fix it,
it keeps rinstaling too. was really happy with vista till this

 

[Richard G. Harper]

When in doubt, never take a hardware update from Windows Update. These are
quite often generic drivers and can disrupt normal functionality of
installed hardware if there is a less-than-perfect match between your
hardware and the driver. It is almost always better to eschew these drivers
and use manufacturer's drivers instead.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

 

[Peter Caplan]

Hi

I was able to fix it by going to the device Manager -> Bluetooth USB ->
Microsoft Bluetooth Device -> Uninstall -> ensure that the box - Delete
Driver is also checked.

After deleting the driver applying Scan for hardware changes caused Vista to
redetect my old hardware and then retedect my bluetooth peripharals all in
one go.
However although my bluetooth mouse worked immediately (no passkey) I found
that I had to delete all my paired devices from the bluetooth control panel
and then redetect and pair them to get them all working again (keyboard,
PDA, Phone, Other PCs etc)

This worked for me on both my laptop and desktop machine which have
different bluetooth radios and bluetooth stacks.

HTH - Peter

 

[Peter Caplan]

Hi

Whilst I dont disagree with your advice and am certainly not trying to start
a flame war the underlying problem here is that the bluetooth implementation
in Vista so far is very poor compared to Windows XP and I thought when I saw
this update that this was at last an attempt by Microsoft to address some of
Vistas Bluetooth shortcomings. Well it does address the problems in one
way - disabling bluetooth will ensure that the problems dont occur. Secondly
the hardware is Microsofts and the Drivers that are being replaced are Vista
internal drivers not third party ones so I would expect an Update on the
Microsoft Update site not to disable integral Vista components.

The problems with the Vista implementation of Bluetooth are - in case you
think I'm being unfair to Microsoft -
[rant mode on]
1. The Vista bluetooth implementation doesn't allow activesync - sorry
WMDC - over bluetooth on almost every PDA and Smartphone that was
manufactured before Vista without arcane registry hacking. (just look at the
MPPA newsgroup)
2. Many bluetooth devices litter the Device Manager Tree with Unidentified
Bluetooth Device messages where parts of drivers have not installed
correctly - the physical devices often work properly despite this (but
sometimes dont).
3. The above problems occur on many brands of bluetooth radio including
Microsofts and on both Microsoft and the Widcomm Bluetooth stack
[rant mode off]

Regards - Peter

 

[Guest]

thankyou peter, its so nice to be able to use a keyboard and mouse instead of
a tablet using the onscreen keyboard and text recognition.

and thankyou richard on your advice to not download "optional" updates.