My girlfriend was really keen on the MS Wireless Bluetooth Desktop. However, after installing Win2K and not realizing why there was no software or drivers to be found anywhere, I finally read online that it can only be used in WinXP. Is there any way at all to get this product to work with 2K, possibly with another BT adapter?

It really depends on the Bluetooth profiles available with other Bluetooth adapters. If they support the HID (Human Interface Device) profile, which is relatively new, then it's likely the keyboard and mouse will work. However knowing MS, you may need to test it before hand.
Check out this interesting article on MS Bluetooth, particularly the comments from the MS wireless architect.

cheers,
Jabz

Wow, that article was very good. Thanks for posting that. It raised a lot of good points for approaching this from the opposite direction (getting the MS stuff to work with existing BT hardware), but helps in my situation too.

Like you say, if there is HID support, it should work.

Therefore, the next question would be: does anyone have a recommendation for a good BT adapter that has HID support?? If at all possible, I'd like to avoid expansion cards and go with USB(1 or 2) or firewire devices (I assume USB).

Two of the best brands I've had experiecene with in Bluetooth products is Anycom and Socket, they may be a little more expensive than other products but they work and work well. They also update their drivers often and support more profiles than other devices. Check out the Anycom USB-220 it supports HID and HCRP (used with printers) profiles

Well, I got the one and only BT adapter in CompUSA (I needed it soon). My experiences so far have not endeared me to the Bluetooth technology. I can't believe the organization's website has the MS BT desktop as the primary product on their homepage.

I can get the devices recognized, but I don' know how to get them working. There's something like a "Bluetooth Neighborhood" on the desktop now, and I can make it search for devices, and if I do that and press the buttons on the underside of the mouse and keyboard, they'll be recognized for what they are, but I don't know what to do after that...

Does the Bluetooth adapter you got support HID profile?
What brand is it?

If it does then....
What you need to do is first, in Bluetooth neighbourhood search for Bluetooth devices, once found, you should then be able to search the devices for available services (e.g. HID support, Com port support etc..) with the MS mouse and keyb it'd only have the HID service available.

At this point depending on the MS products it will either show you available services or try to initiate Pairing/Bonding.
If it tries to initiate a pairing/bonding, it will bring up a window asking for a passkey, look in the MS product documentation, there may be a default passkey you need to use that's already configured onto the mouse/keyb which is usually "0000". Enter it into the box, hit Enter or OK, it then should pair/bond the keyb n mouse.
You then should be able to see them in Bluetooth neighbourhood, and they will stay there even if you reboot.

If it doesn't initiate pairing/bonding itself, select the Bluetooth devices it found, look in the menus in Bluetooth Neighbourhood, usually “tools”, you should see a option to 'pair device' or 'bond device'

Once paired/bonded, you'll see the mouse/keyb in Bluetooth neighbourhood, if you right click them there should be an option to 'connect'. This should create a Bluetooth connection between the device and the computer.

It may even be that it connects automatically since it is a Bluetooth mouse/keyb. However this really does depend on the ms hardware, the above explanation is a generic way to connect Bluetooth devices.

My experiences so far have not endeared me to the Bluetooth technology.

Bluetooth works very well for me so far in my experiences. I also know the reason for this. On the Windows side, the biggest problem is the lack of a standard. Every bluetooth adaptor comes with its own bluetooth stack, and thus there are many variants. HID support is something pretty new, and not all vendors have updated their stack. The other problem is that since every vendor has their own bluetooth stack, there really isn't any consistancy in the interface and how things work. It's a broken mess, and it dosen't look like MS is going to fix it anytime soon. Had USB support been the same on Windows, I could see similar disasters.

Now then, the proper way to do this. Apple implemented a standard bluetooth stack into Mac OS X, and included support for several bluetooth adaptors. If another vendor wants to release a Mac compatible bluetooth adaptor, they write a driver to talk to the built in bluetooth stack, and enjoy having the same end user experience as every other adaptor. I bought a DLink adaptor that is both Mac and PC compatible. After tinkering with it for a bit on my PC laptop, I saw no point in dealing with it. On the Mac side, I plugged it in, and system preferences showed a new bluetooth icon. It simply worked. I then paired my phone, and had immediate use of iSync to keep my phone in sync with the computer address book and calendar. After that, I installed the SEC program when it was in beta, and promptly bought it. It allows me to use the phone as a proximity sensor, and any scriptable event can be run, such as starting my screensaver when I leave.

From here, I plan on getting an iPaq with Bluetooth. I will sync it via my Mac as well (via iSync), and also use my phone and the iPaq to browse the web at 56k speeds. I also want to get a bluetooth hands free kit for the car, and possibly a bluetooth headset.

Yet another one of the many reasons I switched away from Windows.

This is not the only problem I see with Bluetooth. Yes, Microsoft is a part of it, but I see other problems.

For instance, why is it that when I went to CompUSA, they had one single Bluetooth adapter? Not only was it some cheap brand that I'd never heard of, it seemed to be a device that was at least one product cycle old for the company (after looking on their website, which didn't seem to know anything about it).

Frankly, I find it discouraging that the Bluetooth organization assumes the technology will be built into computers (the only thing I can conclude based on the fact that I can't find adapters in stores), and then fully endorses something like the MS Desktop product (refresh this page a couple times) which won't work with those built in receivers (based on the article posted earlier). It is completely ridiculous. I'll stick to USB and save my batteries and my sanity.

Oh, and the worst part is we decided to give in to Microsoft's manipulations and installed XP on my girlfriend's machine. I read somewhere that they now allow you to use one copy of XP on up to something like 3 machines. Is that true?

why is it that when I went to CompUSA, they had one single Bluetooth adapter?

The problem is that on the PC side it still seems to be the chicken and the egg problem. Apple users have enough reasons to actually use bluetooth, so it is becoming commonplace. Lack of real uses on the PC side combined with stories like this don't help. I remember USB being the same way. It took forever to take hold on the PC side, somewhat due to a buggy USB implementation in Windows 95, and not enough devices for people to justify it.

Oh, and the worst part is we decided to give in to Microsoft's manipulations and installed XP on my girlfriend's machine. I read somewhere that they now allow you to use one copy of XP on up to something like 3 machines. Is that true?

Not that I know of. All boxed copies of Windows XP are single license installs. Office XP on the other hand can be installed on 1 desktop and 1 laptop that a single owner uses. I wonder if Microsoft will ever release a Family Pack of their OS.

Okay, I'm getting sick of this. Not only is MS making it impossible to use another BT adapter or any OS other than XP, but now I can't even find out how to obtain the appropriate software, and nothing on their site helps.

The requirements for the wireless optical desktop with Bluetooth is that XP is installed along with service pack 1, plus the XP bluetooth update. I installed SP1 (thanks Rob), and now I am unable to find the slightest hint of the bluetooth update on the MS website. There are slight indications in a few places that the product should have come with this component, but there was zero software included in the box. Not even any instructions.

Any ideas?

I've got a TDK Bluetooth card and tried to look for the MS Bluetooth upgrade as well. From what I can tell, Microsoft just say to go contact your manufacturer for the upgrade as they don't distribute it on their website at all. I would send it to you but TDK are useless and ignored my request for it.

In this case, I guess you'll have to email Microsoft Customer Support or something and try to explain your problem. It's a bit stupid that there is absolutely nothing included in the box though. A CD with SP1 would have been useful because otherwise downloading that over a 56k modem would take ages.

Wasn't there an Iniellitype CD in the box?

As far as I can see the Bluetooth stack is installed by the Intellitype installer

Exactly. I gave up on trying to download a bunch of updates in hopes of getting the right one. By now, I'm pretty sure there was supposed to be software in the box, but there was none. Now I have to find some way to contact support, but MS makes this VERY difficult to do ("NO! I don't want to sign up for Passport just to send you a damn email!").

So I tried a support number (long distance), and when I tried to select the option to speak to a representative, I immediately got cut off.

This is so frustrating.

Nope. It's definately not here at all. Nothing at all like the English Bluetooth update for XP...

You may want to try the non Bluetooth Intellitype software from here. I've not idea if it works but most Microsoft stuff uses the same base software.

Thanks. That got the drivers for the Bluetooth radio installed. I swear I looked all over MS's website several times. Where did you eventually find it? (I know I'll kick myself when you tell me).

But still, they don't supply the specific software for the keyboard, and I would guess that you would need that in order for these devices to work. I'll try the other software though.

Plus, I don't see how to get the radio to go out and find the Bluetooth devices. There don't appear to be any settings or anything, just a listing in device manager...

I found it on the Microsoft Windows Hardware and Driver Center page. It's actually aimed at OEMs and device manufacturers but anybody can look at the pages. Go to Test and then more WHQL Announcements and it's linked there.

I don't have my Bluetooth card with me so I can't actually test it at the moment. It looks like the IntelliType software does the searching for devices and code entry.

I can't thank you enough. I have been frustrated with this problem for days now.

I eventually found the interface for the Bluetooth receiver under "Wireless" in the control panel. I was able to find the mouse and keyboard (and my P800), and the devices themselves loaded the drivers (I must admit, that was pretty cool).

So now I'm totally wireless and I can't thank you enough (and my girlfriend can't thank you enough).

You've got to admit, they should have this driver more prominently featured or at least findable in the general downloads section. I don't understand the justifications for why they would include the software and drivers for some items, but not others.

Anyway, thanks again. I can now do other things with my time

Thanks for thinking of this extremely old thread. I'll have to try fixing my girlfriend's machine again, because a few weeks after that last post the mouse stopped working and no amount of trying could change anything.. She probably hasn't installed SP2 yet, or at least I'm sure she hasn't tried the mouse out again since the pack came out.

If that works, the only problem is that the "special" keys on the keyboard won't work without the MS software which, of course, wasn't included.

I've always found Nokia phones to have all the latest features but are usually poorly implemented. All the Bluetooth Nokia phones I've had were terrible. Most of them just crashed or didn't work properly or like the 7650, didn't have the headset profile so Bluetooth was pretty much only for syncing.

Rant over. Yeah, SP2 seems to be a lot better for Bluetooth and WiFi as well. You can finally set a default WiFi connection you want to use if it detects more than one. I've not had the "Hey! I've just detected some WiFi AP really far away with a crap signal. Are you sure you didn't want to connect to that one instead of your AP? I've disconnected from your AP anyway..." problem recently.

I have a new problem with networking and SP2. When I have two IP addresses set (I have two ADSL lines), if I reboot XP sits there trying to "find" an IP address. This is despite the fact that both IP addresses are static, there is no DHCP involved.

When it does it I have to delete the second IP address, disable/enable the network card and then add the second IP address. A pain in the arse.

I'm getting to the point where I am going to end up scripting the remove/disable/enable/add steps...