In other hardware annoyance news, last week I decided that Bluetooth would work on my PC before the weekend ended. About ten minutes later, Pocket PC Passion reported that Belkin finally released updated drivers. They aren’t the WIDCOMM 1.3 drivers that Belkin support had provided me with Beta releases for back in April, but I figured that I would give them a try anyway.
They failed to work. Big surprise.
To recap, my problem with every version of the WIDCOMM drivers that I’ve tried has been that the configuration changes do not survive beyond clicking the Apply button. I’ve always suspected registry problems, but technical support was unable to help and I haven’t been keen on messing with hives since the time I was stung by about 100 wasps.
But sometimes you have to things that you do not like. I downloaded regmon. It is amazing to see how active the registry is on a seemingly idle computer. After setting up some filters, my suspicions were quickly confirmed: WIDCOMM couldn’t write to the appropriate keys. I have no frickin clue why, the permissions were the same as the are on every other nearby key, but whatever. I uninstalled, ran the installer again, and changed the permissions to something more permissive as soon as it asked me to specify a computer name.
It worked, and I spent the next few hours figuring out how to get Nokia PC Suite talking to my 3650. Finally my phone has been backed up and the first picture has been wirelessly sent to my desktop.
Ignoring my driver problems, the whole Bluetooth experience on Windows still stinks. WIDCOMM’s Bluetooth Explorer seems no worse than the others I’ve seen, which is to say that it’s total garbage. The process for connection PC Suite to my phone goes something like this:
- Enable Bluetooth on the phone.
- Open Bluetooth Explorer
- Map the phone’s “Bluetooth Serial Port” to the “Virtual COM Port” on the computer by right-clicking the shortcut I’ve already created and choosing Connect.
- Dismiss “The remote device closed the connection” error.
- Click on “My Device” and confirm that the ports are, in fact, connected.
- Check that Nokia’s mRouter detected the phone. If not, remove and re-add the port in mRouter, then confirm that the ports are, in fact, still connected
- Open PC Suite.
Steps 2-5 are bullshit that would not be necessary if Microsoft could be bothered to add usable Bluetooth support to Windows. Step 6 is seemingly Nokia’s fault because mRouter sucks as much as WIDCOMM, but mRouter wouldn’t be necessary either if Microsoft had done the right thing.
Virtual COM Ports. It’s like being stuck inside some kind of Unix nightmare…
I’m sorry to read about your bad experiences with Bluetooth. I’m sorry to hear Belkin released just a minor upgrade to 1.2, when current drivers are 1.3 and 1.4 is about to be release (DLINK already posted theirs).
I have had Bluetooth devices for some time now and have no problem with three different brands, over mobile phones, PDA (Palm and Pocket PC), access points, desktops and laptops.
I agree - instead of virtual com ports it should be a driver, makingthe device look like another drive in the system or peripheral.
Hi, I’, having exactly the same problem with a Belkin Bluetooth PCMCIA card, the configuration won’t save. Did you ever get it sorted out? I tried Belkin Support line (ha ha!) and spoke to some sneering git who more or less told me ‘tough’. We can’t be the only two people in the world with this problem can we?
oops, corrected address
Hi,
I am having and have been having problems for a while. I have the D-Link DBT120 build B2 and cannot get it to work. Have been through the support site downloaded the correct drivers but cannot get any “Services” to show up in the service selection window.
Have tried numerous times with no luck???
Any suggestions PLEASE.
(Win XP)
I am having the same problems as you, not being able to change the configuration settings, and it’s really driving me crazy.. It’s incredibly frustrating, since it worked perfectly on my previous install, and also when I tried it on my laptop to rule out that the dongle was broken, it worked just fine..
Could you give me some more specific details on how you got it to work?
I also have the Belkin Bluetooth PCMCIA card, although I can write to the registry, I cannot find any drivers more recent than 1.2; Nokias latest version PC Suite (6.2) will ONLY work with devices with the Widcomm stack 1.4.x or higher. Alas, the PCMCIA card seems to be Belkins only Bluetooth device that hasn’t been upgraded on their website. Having purchased the card a few months ago, surly I wont have to ditch it already!?! Theres no way around the Nokia issue, as the 6.2 version is the only one that works with my new Nokia phone.
I’ve just come across this article while looking to see if there is a better way to connect to my Nokia N-Gage. I have v1.4 Widcomm rubbish and the latest Nokia effort. I have to go through the same malarky of connecting, ignoring the error message, hoping that bluetooth will recognise it etc.
I totally agree with everything said thin the article. We shouldn’t have to put up with this nonsence.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one having trouble with my Belkin PCMCIA Card. The Problem is that the PC Suite wants WIDCOMM 1.4.x and Belkin have not released an updated driver. BUT after contacting them by E-Mail they have promised to replace my F8T002 for the F8T006, which does have the correct drivers, f.o.c. Well done Belkin.
Steve, that’s a lucky deal.
FWIW, I got my F8T001_v1 to work with the MS Bluetooth stack by extracting the files in data1.cab from Belkin’s package and pointing the hardware wizard at those files to find the driver.
I have no idea if PC Suite works with the MS stack, I stopped using my Nokia a long time ago.