Tutorial: Bluetooth A2DP headphones (high quality stereo), Windows Vista, and cellphones (updated 01-Oct-2007)
02-Aug-2007: Added information about using AVRCP with Winamp
24-Sep-2007: Added my experiences with the Toshiba Bluetooth stack
01-Oct-2007: Added information about WIDCOMM Stack 6.0.1.5100, Toshiba Stack 5.00.07 and 5.10.12, BlueSoleil Stack 5.0.5 build 178, an issue with installing the Broadcom/WIDCOMM 6.x drivers via the online web updater, and the References section.
Do you remember when Microsoft introduced Plug & Play back in Windows 95? They were already somewhat behind other platforms at the time with that concept, but, 12 years later, never let it be said that the art of messing around trying to get a simple piece of hardware to work on your PC has died! In this tutorial I'll explain how to get Bluetooth Stereo headphones to work in Windows Vista before you throw them out of the window.
Bluetooth A2DP headphones
Every Bluetooth device supports a set of so-called Bluetooth profiles, which define the capabilities of the device. Until recently, Bluetooth headsets have mostly been used for voice calls which only require a low-bandwidth mono signal, and this is handled by devices supporting the Headset Profile or HSP. There is now a new generation of products for streaming music via Bluetooth, and these take advantage of the Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile or A2DP. A2DP, in a nutshell, allows a high quality stereo audio stream to be sent from your phone or PC to any Bluetooth headset with A2DP support.
Sadly, most phones currently on the market (July 2007) don't suport A2DP (see Symbian OS sidebar), and will use HSP instead. This sounds truly awful, and they are not alone: Windows Vista doesn't support A2DP out of the box either.
Setting up your Windows Vista Bluetooth stack
Microsoft has supplied a crippled Bluetooth stack (the software that allows your PC to communicate with Bluetooth devices) with Vista, with most profiles including A2DP removed; only very basic functions such as file transfer (FTP profile) implemented.
Fortunately, the stack can be replaced, and the first thing you need to do is download Broadcom's (formally WIDCOMM) Bluetooth stack from Broadcom's Bluetooth Software Download page. This works very nicely in Vista with all Bluetooth adapters, and adds all of the profiles that Microsoft left out including A2DP. When you install the Broadcom stack, your existing Bluetooth configuration will be removed and replaced, so you may have to re-pair any existing Bluetooth devices you're using.
Figure 1
Pair your headphones
Turn on your headphones, right-click the blue and white Bluetooth icon in the system tray and choose Show Devices. You'll see a window like that in Figure 1. The first step is to setup your PC and headphones to communicate with each other, which is done by a process known as pairing. Your headphones must be in discoverable mode in order to pair, check your manual to find out how to set this (on my Motorola S9 headphones, the device goes into discoverable mode automatically for 5 minutes after you switch them on, if it couldn't connect to any audio source when first turned on; so if you've already used them or they've been on for more than 5 minutes, you'll have to turn them off and on again).
Click Add... and Vista should find your headphones. Choose 'Use the passkey provided in the documentation' and enter the passkey for your headphones (often 0000).
As your headphones are paired, you'll see numerous drivers being installed, these are drivers for each profile supported by the headphones. You should see Bluetooth Stereo Audio which is A2DP, you may also see Bluetooth Hands-free Audio (HSP), Bluetooth Hands-free telephony (HFP or Hands Free Profile, which allows you to make and receive calls via buttons on the headset) and Bluetooth Remote Control (AVRCP or Audio Video Remote Control Profile, which allows you to pause and seek songs etc. via buttons on the headset).
If your headphones can be connected to more than one device at a time, it is possible to use them simultaneously to listen to music on your PC and take phone calls and SMS alerts from your phone, switching between the two automatically as calls come in and are hung up. If you're planning to use your headphones in this way, you need to right-click their icon in the Bluetooth Devices window, click the Services tab and uncheck Hands-free telephony, otherwise your phone won't be able to connect to them. Note that if you do this, you can't use the headphones for MSN/Skype voice chat.
Figure 2
Connect to your headphones
In the same window as Figure 1, click the Audio tab and you should see something like Figure 2. If Bluetooth Hands-free Audio shows as Connected, click Disconnect so you don't get HSP-quality 8kHz mono sound. Click Bluetooth Stereo Audio and choose Connect. This will connect your headphones to Vista. Most headphones remember the last device they were connected to and will auto-reconnect next time you switch them on, so you should only need to do this once.
For some reason Vista can be a real bitch about connecting to the Bluetooth device so you may need to restart your headphones and/or Vista itself before you can finally establish a connection. If you have other Bluetooth devices like your cellphone nearby you can make life easier for yourself by disabling Bluetooth on them until you get your headphones hooked up to Vista. This is all part of the fun of getting them to work :-) Once you've got them connected, re-enable Bluetooth on your other nearby devices.
Some headphones don't support Secure Connections
The instructions for my headphones say to turn off the Secure Connection option because the audio is sent unencrypted. In Windows XP, you have a checkbox for this on each device's properties tab. Broadcom's stack in Windows Vista enables encryption by default and the only way to turn it off is to edit the registry.
If you've tried restarting both your headphones and Vista several times, repaired them and still can't get them to connect, press START+R, type regedt32 and press Enter to bring up the registry editor. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Widcomm\BTConfig\Applications, look through all the subkeys to find the one with a Name key of Stereo Audio (0013 in my case), and change the Encryption subkey from 1 to 0. If you want to be thorough, you can also repeat this for the keys with name subkeys of Headset, Audio Gateway and Hands-free Audio, then repeat the same again for the BTConfig\Services tree.
Close the registry editor, restart Broadcom's Bluetooth stack (a nice way to do this is to pull your Bluetooth adapter out and in again, or press the Bluetooth radio toggle button on your laptop) and try to connect with your headphones again.
Figure 3
Make Vista auto-switch between Bluetooth audio and your normal soundcard when the Bluetooth headphones are switched off
Go to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Manage audio devices and you'll get the window in Figure 3. Bluetooth audio is treated as two virtual soundcards with a single speaker output each - one for HSP and one for A2DP. If you can't see two Bluetooth 'soundcards' in the Playback tab, right-click and ensure that 'Show disabled devices' and 'Show disconnected devices' are both ticked.
No sound will come out of your Bluetooth headphones until you set them as the default playback device even if they show as connected, so it's important to complete this step.
Click the soundcard you want to use when your Bluetooth headset is disconnected and click Set Default then Apply. Then click Bluetooth Stereo Audio, Set Default and Apply again. Vista will handily remember the last default soundcard you chose, so that when your Bluetooth headset is disconected, playback will automatically revert back to your normal soundcard. When your headset is reconnected, playback will automatically be redirected into it. This way, you don't have to keep changing the default playback device all the time.
Bluetooth Stereo Audio and Bluetooth Hands-free Audio only appear in the Playback tab of this window when the headphones are connected. When you turn them off, the Bluetooth playback devices will disappear and the default will revert to your preferred soundcard.
To get music to actually play via Bluetooth, you typically have to stop and restart the current track on your media player. In Winamp, pausing isn't good enough, you literally have to click Stop then Play to get the music to stream properly; this is because it will keep streaming into the normal default soundcard until it realises the default has been changed. Some audio applications may require you to restart them altogether.
But it skips every 15 seconds...
Yes, indeed it does, and this is the main puzzler that got me frustrated. At first I thought the problem was with my Bluetooth adapter, being Bluetooth 1.2 against my headphones' Bluetooth 2.0 (see panel to the right). However when I tried them on Windows XP on the same machine, they worked perfectly.
The problem is the Microsoft and Broadcom Bluetooth stacks interfere with each other and degrade the overall Bluetooth performance of the machine. The solution is to turn off the Microsoft stack, which has some hefty drawbacks:
- My Bluetooth Places and the menu options on the Bluetooth system tray icon will stop working. This means you can't access the Bluetooth Devices window to disconnect or reconnect your headphones if there's a problem, or any other devices.
- Some applications only support Microsoft's Bluetooth stack so you may for example lose the ability to communicate with your cellphone via Bluetooth.
Figure 4
If your headphones are constantly skipping like mine were, turning off Microsoft's stack is the only way to go. First, stop it from launching automatically when you turn on your computer. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services and scroll down to the service called Bluetooth Support as shown in Figure 4. Right-click the service, choose Properties and change the startup type from Automatic to Manual. Click OK.
To turn off Microsoft's Bluetooth stack, click Stop the service in the left-hand part of the list of services while Bluetooth Support is still highlighted. You should find that within a few seconds of doing this, any skipping you experience in your headphones disappears; you don't need to restart the current song for this to work. If the skipping persists, you may have a problem with range, location, interference and so on so check the rest of your setup. A2DP is entirely a software implementation so your Bluetooth adapter doesn't need any special support in order for A2DP to work properly.
The finnicky setup aside, this stack conflict problem is the key reason why A2DP headphones are unusable by default in Vista. If you get this problem, try turning off Microsoft's Bluetooth Support service before you start hacking up the registry.
Figure 5
Set up shortcuts to toggle Microsoft's Bluetooth stack
You'll probably find that you do need to access the aforementioned windows from time to time, especially when you've been out of range for a while with your headphones and Vista randomly decides not to let them connect automatically anymore. You can make some double-click shortcuts on your desktop to turn Microsoft Bluetooth Support on and off easily as follows:
- Press START+R, type
cmdand press Enter to bring up the command prompt. - Type
cd desktopto move your working directory to the desktop. - Type
echo net start bthserv > BTSupport-On.bat - Type
echo net stop bthserv > BTSupport-Off.bat - Type
exit
Figure 5 shows what the command prompt should look like before you press Enter for the final time. This will create two files on your desktop, BTSupport-On and BTSupport-Off, which will enable and disable Microsoft Bluetooth Support respectively. When you need to access the Bluetooth Devices window, double-click BTSupport-On (expect your headphones to start skipping very soon), do what you need to do, then double-click BTSupport-Off so that just the Broadcom stack is left running.
While you're making shortcuts, I recommend also creating shortcuts to Sound and Audio Devices and Bluetooth Devices on the desktop, so you can quickly access the relevant windows when things stop working as they should. I have them in a little cluster on my secondary monitor.
Connecting to a PC and a phone simultaneously
One of the brilliant redeeming features which make combo A2DP/HFP headsets a pleasure to use is that, if they support connections to more than one device at a time, you can connect your PC and your phone at the same time, have your music on loud yet never miss a call or SMS.
The trick to getting this to work in Vista is initially to disable Bluetooth on your phone altogether and just get A2DP working properly on your PC first, as described above. Once you've got this working smoothly, and made sure that Bluetooth Hands-free Audio reports itself as Disconnected in Bluetooth Devices, go ahead and pair your phone with the headphones. Again you will probably need to restart your headphones or press a button on them to put them into discoverable mode so that your phone can find them. Don't disconnect them from Vista while you do this. Because the A2DP connection is already being used by the PC, the phone will only be able to establish a connection via HFP/HSP, which means the music will keep streaming from your PC, but when a call or text comes in, the audio will switch to your phone and you can take the call. The music on the PC keeps playing, but when you hang up the audio should automatically switch back from your phone to Vista. You should not need to restart the current track for this to work, it should be handled seamlessly by your headset.
Using the Toshiba Bluetooth stack
The article above discusses using the Broadcom stack for A2DP. You can also use other stacks, including the Toshiba Bluetooth stack which is pre-installed on many laptops.
v5.00.07
My experience with the Toshiba stack: setting up the headphones is easier, you just choose New Connection from the Bluetooth Settings window and follow the steps. Windows will automatically select the Bluetooth Audio Device as the default after you pair the headphones.
If you're using HFP to connect to a phone as well for the call answering functionality, you must select Custom Mode instead of Express Mode when setting up the headphones connection, and only choose Audio Sink as the desired service. Otherwise, the Toshiba stack will take control of the headphones' HFP connection whenever it can and your phone won't be able to stay connected to the headphones.
AVRCP only works in Windows Media Player, not Winamp, even using the method described in the sidebar in this article, which is a major problem.
Nokia PC Suite causes problems with the playback, even if Machine A is playing music to your headphones, Machine B is running Nokia PC Suite and your phone is connected via Bluetooth to both machines. That basically means you can't use your Nokia phone to do Bluetooth transfers or as a Bluetooth modem while you're listening to music.
Unlike the Broadcom stack, you don't have to mess around with disabling services to get it to work, and the software allows you to make a shortcut to your headphones on the desktop (causing them to connect) which makes it much quicker to recover when you get disconnected.
On my laptop, when you come out of sleep or hibernate mode, the headphones won't connect anymore with the Toshiba stack, and you have to re-pair them or reboot. The Broadcom stack doesn't seem to have that issue.
v5.10.12
Basically, the latest version of the stack (August 2007) has all the same benefits and problems as mentioned above. One great benefit to A2DP in this version of the stack is that it will automatically revert your soundcard settings from/to Bluetooth Audio Device whenever the headphones are disconnected or reconnected. Although the previous version did this as well at the system level, it was not reflected in any currently running audio applications. This meant you either had to restart them or change the output in the application's options window every time you disconnect or reconnect the headphones. In v5.10.12, the output is changed automatically in all the running applications when the connection state changes.
(if you use Winamp for music playback, this means the annoying 'DirectSound output error' dialog is gone forever!)
AVRCP still only works in Media Player.
BlueSoleil
BlueSoleil is reported by many to be the best, most reliable and feature-rich Bluetooth Stack available, including full Vista support, A2DP support and AVRCP for many players including Winamp, Foobar2000 and iTunes.
I tried v5.0.5 build 178 on a desktop with a D-Link DBT-122 USB Bluetooth adapter, and a Fujitsu Siemens LifeBook P1610D laptop with an integrated Toshiba Bluetooth adapter. In short, I wasn't able to verify how well the stack worked, because on both machines the software simply reported "No Bluetooth hardware found."
If your device is supported by BlueSoleil it may well be worth trying; unfortunately I wasn't able to find a list of compatible adapters online. Please post your experiences with BlueSoleil below!
Broadcom Bluetooth stack (6.x version)
The article above discusses the 5.x release of Broadcom's stack.
With version 6.0.1.5100 (released June 2007) I can report that the stack's behaviour appears to be identical with all the same benefits and problems.
Broadcom / WIDCOMM stack update issues
Since I originally wrote the article, some users have reported that the online Broadcom update (see link in References below) downloads the software then fails to install. As d7racerx points out below, it seems you have to unplug your Bluetooth adapter before you run the updater, wait for it to ask you to insert it (before the update downloads) and then do so. I can verify that the download seems to fail when the device is already plugged in, and seems to succeed when you start with it unplugged. If you're having problems downloading the Broadcom stack, please try this technique!
Conclusion
It really is the case, unfortunately, that using Bluetooth A2DP headphones in Vista is a pain in the ass. Not only are they unnecessarily complicated to configure, but if you go out of range for long enough to become disconnected, switching them off and on again doesn't always reconnect you (although it usually does), and you still have to stop and restart the current track. Having to disable all the Bluetooth support tools to listen to music can be irritating if you are using laptops, phones and PCs with Bluetooth connections together, and for when you have to fix the headphone connection when it breaks.
Overall though, I would say that when it does work (which is the majority of the time), it works great and it's very nice not to be tied to your desk with a headphone cable, which how I usually used to be tethered to my work :-) Auto-reverting to the non-Bluetooth defalt soundcard is very handy when the batteries run flat, and the seamless switching between PC and phone (a feature provided by the headset, not Vista) is great.
Vista's Bluetooth support is clearly immature and needs alot of work in both usability and reliability, but we could say the same of most current generation cellphones since they mostly aren't A2DP-ready either.
I hope you enjoyed the article. Please share your Bluetooth audio experiences below!
References
Broadcom (WIDCOMM) Bluetooth Stack download page
Toshiba Bluetooth Stack download page
BlueSoleil Bluetooth stack download page
Dev-Hack download page for old Broadcom stack (5.1.0.1100 and license patcher)
Dev-Hack: Uncrippling Bluetooth in Vista RTM - another approach to the Broadcom stack; I haven't tried this myself, the page remarks that the technique doesn't work for A2DP playback.
Printer-friendly version- 34462 reads
buy wow gold cheap wow power
buy wow gold
cheap wow power leveling
my wow gold
cheapest wow power leveling
BUY wow gold
cheap wow power leveling
CHEAP rs gold
good wow power leveling
MY lotro gold
CHEAPEST aion gold
buy wow gold
cheap wow gold
CHEAPEST wow gold
2 BT headsets
Can we use 2 BT headsets on one PC? the connection works.. but the music is audible only from one. Any idea why ?
2 headsets
I am trying to connect 2 headsets to my laptop so that 2 of us can watch a movie at the same time. Is this possible. The BT network connects to 2 headphones (simple) but the sound comes but only from one. Any idea... any help ? - Joe
I bought the Nokia MD-5W from
I bought the Nokia MD-5W from http://www.puremobile.com/Nokia/Nokia-MD-5W-Bluetooth-Stereo-Speaker-Ret... for my N95 and Its been working like a charm. Can't complain!
Drrr
You NERD!! =)
Thanx a lot!
Great
Great info! I live in Korea and bought a techno-gizmo bluetooth headset called Abe BT-55D, which is non-existent in the Western world, and was unable to pair it and later get proper sound quality until you, Katy, helped me. Thanks a million!
Thanks very much!
I spent around 5 hours last week over a couple of days trying to get my Samsung Home Theater to connect via bluetooth to my pc. My mobile phone had no problems playing music over the Samsung home theater, but windows vista completely refused. I tried several soultions that I found on the internet to no avail.
Finally thought I'd give it one more try and found this site. Fantastic! Thanks very much!
A2DP
I just bought a Dell Studio XPS 16. The bluetooth mouse worked fine out of the box. The Motorola S9 did not. I followed the service links from Dell, they had me un-install the bluetooth drivers and re-install and voila, it worked. It might be that the drivers on the web site have the A2DP support whereas the stuff in the box did not.
Thanks,
Jerry
I love you...
will you marry me?
Many thanks
What a great page. Having spent hours unsuccessfully trying, I googled my problem and up came all your answers. It now works fine. I use a Belkin adapter to a Motorola DC800 to send Spotify through the hi-fi. The sound is excellent. Many, many thanks.
Bomber
Not suprising for me
There is an arsenal of old technolgies that don't work with windows Vista, not only won't my heaphone play, my camera mess up once i connect it to Vista, i think all those things need to be out of the amrket since all of the new devices work with Vista.
Unfortunately, the Broadcom download page is down
Does anyone else have a copy of the Broadcom download software? The broadcom download page linked to in this article no longer has the software available for download.
Still couldn't get the
Still couldn't get the download. Whats wrong with the page?
Isn't there anyone on the web who has got ther new drivers?
Page moved
Try http://widcomm-bluetooth.software.informer.com/
unable to connect vista and blue tooth mic
I have sony ericsson HBH DS-970 headset,iam abel to pair it to my laptop and hear audio but my laptop doesnt recognize the mic/ nor iam unable to configure the mic part,please help me
BT Stereo Headset
Thanks a lot for great tutorial. Finally I could get all my answers in single page. But thisdoesnt seem to solve my problem. After all the steps in getting the BT stereo headset connected, the sound still doesnt seem to cometo the headset. The sound devices says that its working with animations by the side. Wonder is BT remote works. I could control the WMP from the headset but couldnt be luckier to get the sound on it. Any solution please?
Vista wont allow me to specify passkey
Hi there.
I have recently bought a A2DP bluetooth speaker from Altec Lansing, and it connects perfectly with my SE K810i cell phone with key 0000 - so far so good!
I have a Thinkpad T61 with Vista and would love to make the sound go from the laptop to the speaker. Vista identifies the device as a headset, but wont allow me to specify a passkey for the device. Vista says the devices doesnt support passkey exchange, and only allow me not to specify one - but then, eventhough paired, it cannot connect to the speaker. Have you any idea how to solve this problem?
Thanks in advance!
What Problem ?
I bought a Motorola DC800 Bluetooth audio widget to stream music from my Vista laptop (Acer 6920G) into my hifi. Having read this page and a number of others, I was expecting problems. However, it all just WORKS ! My laptop has a Broadcom BT module and all the latest visa updates.
I can send and receive full stereo audio without interruption, even with my mobile phone connected as well. The unit paired perfectly and it was a simple matter to set the device as the default audio output. Now, when I switch on the BT, the laptop uses the DC800 and reverts back to the internal speakers when I turn off the BT.
My laptop is sold as an HD entertainment media centre, so maybe the BT support for speakers and headphones has already been improved ?
Still a Poblem?
First off, I must thank you for a solution to the skipping problem.I do have a question though. The date on this is around 2 years old. Has there been a permanent fix to this bluetooth conflict? I find it unacceptable to have to turn of services in order to make things work.
Who is at fault? Microsoft? Is there a hot fix for this? or a fix in an upcoming service pack?
Odd stuff.
GREAT
Many thanks for the article, it really has helped me to understand the way Vista recognises and works with bluetooth headsets (or doesnt).
I actually have a slightly different issue with my system as when I disable the bluetooth adaptor in my laptop (to save battery power), it will not reconnect the "bluetooth stereo audio" when the bluetooth adaptor is re-enabled requiring me to restart the laptop. No Re-pairing is neccessary, just a restart. very odd.
Vista Business SP1
HP 6735
Jabra BT530
Great help
Thanks so much for this information. I have a iogear bluetooth headset and the instructions manual wasnt very helpfull, I was able to pair both my laptop and cellphone with your instuctions!!!
Thanks again!!!
Great stuff, thanks so much!
Cheers a ton,
Thanks to your webpage I had the confidence to buy an a2dp sink after reading a few bad costumer reviews on a2dp devices in terms of delay and bad connections. Reading your instructions led me to believe they probably hadn’t set it up correctly – after all it’s quite a process. However, the link to broadcoms page you give doesn’t let you download the stack, anymore that is, I believe. Fujitsu Siemens doesn’t seem to provide the necessary software either, even though they sell the sink, but luckily I was able to find it from HP from whom my laptop is. I found the link in HPs 'Business Support Forums > Desktops and workstations > home PCs - pavilion, presario' titled ‘How to rebuild Bluetooth Stack in Vista m8120n’ which advises to download the update from HPs ftp server under ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp38001-38500/sp38167.exe. That worked for me :) so now I can lounge on the couch with no cables attached (except power perhaps) and do my ‘work’ while having the sound play on my stereo.
Thanks again and all the best to you!
Kind regards,
jc
Thanks a million!!!
You are star!!
After three days of unsucessful tries, I found you article.
I am really surprized ..how you have include solution to all the minute mistakes, that everyone makes..
All I can say a fantastic, informative and a well articulated article..
Thanks for this!!
Gaurav
MoGo / Broadcomm
I may be the only one who's had this happen, but the Mogo/Broadcomm software won't install for me. Stuck at "Detect Bluetooth Device", for as long as 5 minutes. Vista can detect the device immediately.
Philips SHB6100 having to pair device to get stereo sound
Hi ,
Thanks for all the very useful info,
got the headset to work with hp laptop with internal bluetooth finally
unfortunately after troubleshooting, I'm still having issues with this Vista, Bluetooth and the headset.
Here it goes...
- turn on computer...
- pair bluetooth headset with passkey 0000, ...wow it works (microphone, handsfree mono and stereo sound)
- turn off headset or the computer and turn it back on, and can't get the stereo sound from headset.
- I then enter ''Bluetooth Devices'' in the ''Audio'' tab (as in Figure 2 above) and see both -bluetooth hands-free audio- (connected)and -bluetooth stereo audio- (disconnected) under Philips SHB6100
- with the headset still on I try to manually connect the stereo headset and get the following baloon popup with a yellow triangle in the task bar 'bluetooth headset did not accept stereo audio connection'.............why?
- disconnecting hands-free and trying to connect to stereo doesn't work, power off and on again...still no luck...other combos tried...nada...
At this point if I really want to listen to (stereo) music, i have to remove the bluetooth device and re-pair it, then it works again.
I find this procedure sort of annoying,
If anyone has had a similar problem and/or solution, any comment would be appreciated.
Thanks again,
Denis
Serial (COM) port services cause skipping
I was getting the problem of skipping every few seconds. For me, stopping Microsoft's Bluetooth Support Service didn't fix the problem. I found that it was caused by a particular bluetooth service of my phone that had a COM port mapped to it, called "Serial port (SPP)". Just having the service selected was enough to cause problems, even when the phone's bluetooth was turned off.
Open the Bluetooth Devices window and look at the Devices tab. Go through every device you have in that list, and do these steps for each one:
1. Turn on bluetooth on the device.
2. Click the device name and click Properties.
3. Go to the Services tab.
4. If any one of the services has a COM port displayed next to it (for example, "Serial port (SPP)"), then uncheck its box.
Also, if there are any devices listed that you will never use, you should probably remove the pairing. At least for audio devices, it seems that Windows gets confused when more than one device offers the same service, even after you tell it which one is your default.
There may be a caveat of deselecting the service, however. You may not be able to sync your phone using the software that came with it. When I need to sync, I just go back in and select the service again. I wonder if there is an automatic way to do it.
Thank you Katy for your tutorial. It helped get me started with my troubleshooting. Now my sound quality is excellent, and there is no skipping. I'm using Broadcom/WIDCOMM driver version 6.2.6000.1, Vista Business SP1, and a Motorola S9-HD.
Hmmm, I download the last
Hmmm, I download the last Widcomm profile stack from the Mogostore website. But it seems that the audio driver could not be installed correctly. So after my stereo device is connected to PC, no bluetooth audio device could be seen in vista's Sound Device dialog.
And I am also very confused: Widcomm's own profile stack works well in XP. And so many people have got used to old style SW. Why did widcomm cowork with MS's BT stack in Vista?
With your help, I found my solution
I found your page through Google.
I tried to pair Nokia BH-503 as well as Nokia MD-5W with my Vista PC but got heavily degraded monaural sound on "Hands Free profile"; my audio devices would not connect to the . I have quite a fun time figuring out if it was my USB slots, if the internal slot was bad, bad connection, were the radios going out on my accessories, or was it failing or conflicting software.
After reading this page and "wiki-ing" various terms things began to make more sense and I started making connections. I soon found a solution.
For those using WIDCOMM, check the release version; you can check it by going to the "Program and Features" icon in the Control Panel. If it is 6.0.1.XXXX go to the Broadcom Bluetooth update page and download the offered update. It will update youre previous version to 6.1.0.XXXX.
After downloading, installing, and rebooting your Vista PC your stereo BT headsets should connect to your Vista PC.
BT Headset
I cant seem to get my philips shb9000 headset working with my notebook (vista business)
i can connect and install the phones, new audio devices appear (2 play 1 rec) but they dont work.
is that possibly a bt stack problem? im using win stack, as i cant install another stack either .... the widcom installer doesnt recognize my bt dev
thxx
IARI
THANK YOU!!
I had some serious issues with Windows Vista Ultimate and somehow lost A2DP ability. I just found your website and it detailed every issue I've experienced. Thank you very much for the detailed write-up and research!!!
Issue with installing Broadcom driver on Vista for Motorola S9
I'm having issues running the Broadcom driver installation on my Vista laptop. When the installer runs, I get a message stating the following:
Your Bluetooth software cannot be upgraded using this web site because the device is not supported. Please contact the manufacturer of your Bluetoot device for further details.
The only thing I can think of is that I bought this device on Amazon and while I'm 100% confident it's a legit S9, it didn't come with a USB dongle for charging it from a laptop. Instead, it only came with an AC charger. Is it possible to install the drivers while the device is connected over Bluetooth?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Error installing Broadcom on Vista 64 laptop
Like others have reported, the installation erros out with the same error message noted previously. However, I have an imbedded bluetooth capability in my HP Pavilion, so I can't "unplug it". Any suggestions would be surely appreciated.
Thanks,
Lardot
XP fix - Bluetooth
Would any of these stacks work for helping Windows XP.. XP Bluetooth built in recognizes the BT device but will never pair properly do any of the stack you mention also work for windows XP?
Thanks
Thakn you a billion
Thanks a trillilon, just stumbled on this, you are awesome. sorry for bad speeling, been writing drivers all day.
Thanks a ton for
Thanks a ton for this!!!
Regards,
Konig
Turns out it was both
Turns out it was both Voice Recognition and the installed speakers that were the problem. I think the sound card was interfering with the path to the headset. I enabled normal speakers and about 10 seconds later I lost sound. I disabled it again and rebooted and had sound until Voice Recognition got loaded then about ten seconds after that I lost sound again. I shut down Voice Recog and about ten second later I got sound again. Not sure why that is happening. Anyway, right now with the system speakers disabled and Voice Recog shut down I have good sound.
Walt
Question about my headphones
I have a pair of Motorola bluetooth headphones as well and I haven't been able to figure out why the sound quality is so poor when connecting to Vista. If I connect the same headphones to my phone and listen to the same MP3s the quality is perfect. I've tried changing bluetooth stacks, adapters, and reverting to the earlier version, as suggested in the post. I am currently running bluetooth 2.0 with the newest broadcom stack, my headphones connect no problem, i get sound out of them, it's just horrible quality. I know my headphones are top end, the computer is not showing the performance. What could be the reason??
Solutions
I know I had big problems getting my Sony headphones to even connnect. I did several draconian things to solve this. I disabled the normal speakers on my computer. I also shut down voice recognition in Vista. Seems like everything or nothing interferes at some time or another. I will restart those things one at a time to see what the real problem was. Like you I had to download the Broadcom solution. It took me hours of fiddling to get it working. I am using a D-Link USB Bluetooth. I finally had to uninstall all the driver software provided by D-Link. Then I plugged in the D-Link Bluetooth and let windows do its thing. It eventually let me to Broadcom. After I downloaded that I still had to fiddle some more. Right now I am getting great sound on steaming radio. I think mostly your problem probably is that everything in Windows is interconnected so much that when you add anything you get unintended consequences. It's a Windows thing. And Vista definitely doesn't like Bluetooth stereo headsets yet. It leans heavily in the direction of the normal installed speakers. You will have to fight Windows all the way to get it working the way you want.
Good luck,
Walt
Post new comment