I’ve tried installing Belkin and IOGear Bluetooth USB adapters on my desktop, and tried installing Belkin and Kensington adapters on a brand new, clean laptop (doesn’t even have antivirus software yet), both PCs running XP Pro SP2. None of the combinations so far have worked. Belkin on desktop won’t finish its install program, says it can’t see the adapter when I plug it in, and same thing on the laptop. I’ve messed with drivers and the USB and tried different ordering of some steps and 20 attempts later, still no go. The IOGear install locks up on the desktop. The Kensington install appeared to work on the laptop, and its software will open and it looks like the docs say it should, but whenever the adapter is plugged in, I get notified that the touchpad has been disabled (which it has) because I’ve plugged in an alternate pointing device (which I haven’t).
Do ANY of these things work? Is there some trick, other than painstakingly following the instructions down to taking notes and keeping checklists?
If I remember correctly, I had similar problems with an LG Bluetooth dongle a few months ago. The problem was that Windows XP had automatically installed its own useless Bluetooth drivers as soon as I plugged in the dongle. I had to Google to find out how to uninstall those drivers first before I could install the drivers I needed.
Its kind of like a CD burner when they 1st came out. :mad:
The new ones work like magic compared to the 1st generation ones.
I have one (I/O gear BT) that works and it only took me about a week of fiddling to get it to work with my cell phone, but I gave up trying to get it to work with the wifes cell phone.
If you get it to work name it right. I wish I had, now I have to scroll down a long list of names to transfer every picture because of the name. If i every do it again the desktop will be named AA.
I’m using Pentagram dongle. It come with CD containing BlueSoleil software. Installed it on my laptop, desktop and workplace desktop (all with XP sp 2) and it worked without any problems. Easy and fast.
If you want to give it a try, here is BlueSoleil site: http://www.bluesoleil.com/. Their software isn’t free, but is free to download and try, so you might check if it works.
>Windows XP had automatically installed its own useless Bluetooth drivers
I think this has happened in one of my attempts. I’ve tried to force installation of the manufacturer’s drivers, using Device Manager under MMC, but it just tells me it couldn’t find a better match than the software I already had (meaning the Microsoft driver). I also tried renaming driver files to see if I could foil the Plug & Play service, which is one of the unstoppable services (I read), but they seem to reappear. The install instructions are always clear about not plugging the thing in until the right moment, but that’s not enough to stop Plug & Play, apparently.
>If you get it to work name it right.
What, you mean assigning the cellphone a good name during the Add Bluetooth Device step? That’s really easy, only takes a minute, right? In fact, using the Microsoft drivers on the Belkin adapter I found I had to go through Add Device and Remove Device every single time I used it. Is this the step you’re referring to?
>I’m using Pentagram dongle. It come with CD containing BlueSoleil software.
Hmmm, looking into it - looks nice - still very cheap, though. Not obvious from the web site that it works with XP, though you find it does. Also, is the Pentagram hardware sold by bluesoleil? I didn’t see it. Will look further into this, though - Thanks!
I’ve got an ASUS Bluetooth dongle that has never really worked correctly. I’m running XP Pro SP2. I’ve got a machine specific bluetooth card that I haven’t installed, but I’m hoping that it works correctly.
I’m currently using this bad boy from AZIO (though I’m on a Vista machine). It installed perfectly when plugged in earlier today (I’ve had the thing lying around for like 6 months and forgot about it). As far as your situation, I’d check around here to see if you can find your model and download the latest driver. I’m sure there’s a similar website for your other device.
Other than that, uninstall the device from hardware manager, scan for new hardware changes, cancel the xp setup, and install manually from your different drivers.
I’ve thought about this, instead of a USB adapter, for the desktop. I wonder if there is anything about having USB involved that makes these adapters harder to make work right.
>cancel the xp setup
You mean, do something that prevents XP from automatically installing Microsoft drivers? How do I do that?
BTW I’ve tried installing the latest drivers, using the adapter manufacturer’s driver installer from their web site. No better.
It for sure works with XP - been there, done that.
Can’t help you with hardware, though. I don’t know if they even are available in US - it looks like Pentagram is Europe-based. Anyway, here’s link to their webpage: http://www.pentagram.eu/
Have a revised installer from tech support at Kensington to try, plus 3 other brands of adapters on the way from Amazon.com. We’ll see what works.
Found a web reference to the disabled touchpad problem that gives step by step instructions for fixing the problem. The last two steps involve clicking on buttons that aren’t in the dialog boxes my machines show.
Reading reviews of Bluetooth adapters on Amazon’s wonderful web site seems to indicate that about 10% or 20% of applications just plain don’t work at all even when people really try hard (or 10 to 20% of the ones people were motivated to post about, to be more accurate).
I sure wish there were a product available that did what these dataloggers do but didn’t rely on Bluetooth. What a mess.