Making Your Bluetooth Dongle Work With Widcomm's My Bluetooth Places

If you have a BT dongle that shipped with the Blue Soleil or other non-Widcomm BT software you may not be able to work with it as easily as you can with the Widcomm "My Bluetooth Software" and you'll find that your BT dongle probably won't work with the Widcomm software at all.

Until Now!

Follow the detailed instructions below and all should be well.

DO EVERYTHING EXACTLY AS DESCRIBED!

WIDCOMM Drivers and Software Version 4 Install Guide

PLEASE READ FULLY

Please note all credit goes to Jon from Jonsguide.com for this material. I am presenting it here for your convenience.

For a list of tested devices please see: http://www.jonsguides.com/bluetooth/tested.html
If your device isn't there don't worry as long as it can use the Widcomm software.
I have done this successfully myself with a generic BT dongle that shipped only with the Blue Soleil software and would not work with the Widcomm s/w.

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 BT device:

Before pulling it out find it in the device manager and uninstall the device.
If you have a USB or a PCMCIA/PC Card Bluetooth device, disconnect it.

If you have a laptop/notebook or other device with Internal Bluetooth that can be "turned off" turn it off.

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 necessarily 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.

REBOOT!!!

PLEASE NOTE: THE LINKS SHOWN MAY NOT STILL WORK. USING GOOGLE or YAHOO YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIND THEM.

Download and extract the files:
Download the Widcomm Version 4 Software from here:
http://www.playstation2.com.ve/store/view_doc.php?view_doc=23
Extract the downloaded file to a new folder of your choice. (Link updated 2/23/06 - site is in Spanish but what you need is in English. If link is bad search for "bluetooth_patches.rar").

VERY IMPORTANT:
Replace btwusb.inf in the extracted folder with this one for USB:
http://www.playstation2.com.ve/store/view_doc.php?view_doc=23

Download the patched files from here and extract to default directory:
http://www.playstation2.com.ve/store/view_doc.php?view_doc=23

Driver Installation:

Now for the driver and software installation. Go to the folder where the Widcomm files were extracted and run setup.exe and let it complete its tasks. It may ask you to plug in/enable your device. If it does, click 'cancel' and it will continue without it. (If you have to plug it in and it installs the microsoft drivers don't panic just continue with the guide.)

Once completed REBOOT the PC into SAFE MODE (F8 when booting).

Software Patching:

Reboot into safe mode if you've not already done so.

Use the files extracted from the patched file to replace the following:

BTTray & BTStackserver in C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth Software;

BTNeighborhood.dll & wbtapi.dll in C:\WINDOWS\system32

REBOOT the PC normally.

Bluetooth Installation:

If you did not plug in/re-enable your bluetooth device during installation, do so now and it will install the Widcomm drivers if you renamed the MS drivers as described in my earlier post.

The Widcomm icon should now be in your task bar and be white on blue. Your device should now be working properly with Widcomm drivers version 4.x.x.x.
If for some reason your device is not listed or not working you may have missed a step or done something wrong. You should start again from the beginning of this guide as it may work the second time.

***Please note...although this process has worked very successfully for me I provide no guarantees that it will work for you and I am not responsible for any data loss or other problems you encounter. Remember, if all else fails, System Restore is your friend!

ONE MORE IMPORTANT NOTE:

Before doing all of the above and solving my problem, I tried to use the Blue Soleil software that shipped with the dongle. In doing so my Motorola Razr v3 then could not receive files from my other known working installation of the Widcomm s/w on another PC with a different dongle. This was NOT solved by turning the phone off and back on but WAS SOLVED by removing the battery from the phone for 30 seconds and then restarting the phone. So, if you've been fooling around with a Blue Soleil installation, remove the battery from your phone for 30 seconds and then try with the new Widcomm installation.

Any comments or enhancements are always welcome!