7) Right-click on the "non-MS" Bluetooth driver and choose "Update driver...". Click along in order to get to where you can manually select the driver for your dongle (the "Have disk..." option). Point to the file called "btwusb.inf" on CD or in downladed driver files and update with this driver. Reboot only if necessary. Bluetooth "B" icon in your system tray should be white now - if that is the case, then non-MS Bluetoth is now working on your PC and you're half-way through!
This is how your Bluetooth icon should look - now you're ready to play! :wink:
Note: The Microsoft Bluetooth icon will always remain visible in the control panel (root directory), but that is no problem!
8 ) Activate Bluetooth on your PC and pair with your headset according to the manual (quite simple but it takes a few steps). Experience shows that it is a good idea
not to activate the "audio gateway" profile, but only the "headset" profile. If you know that you need other profiles for e.g. file sharing over BT or other stuff, then do activate those profiles, but keeping it to a minimum will surely minimize the risk of setup errors!
9) Close Skype completely, restart Skype and then choose "Bluetooth Audio" as sound input and output in Skype.
10) Connect your headset from the PC (Right-click on BT icon on the lower right of the screen, choose "Fast connection" > "Headset" and then choose your headset). Receive the incoming call on the headset itself (press "accept call" button when you hear a repeating sound in the headset). If the Bluetooth "B" in the system tray goes green, you're nearly there! Your headset is now in "call" mode so it does consume battery at the highest rate (my Logitech still has power for 6 hours in this state). All audio on your PC now goes through the headset.
11) Make a test call to Skype profile "echo123" and do a test recording.
12) If your hear audio and your own recorded testcall, you're done! CONGRATULATIONS!
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13) If you hear the nice lady, but not your own test call (or just noise), then it is most probably because you do not have the latest Bluetooth driver installed. If you hear nothing at all, check carefully if you did all of the above once again - or you might not have a Bluetooth 1.1 dongle (in that case - bad luck!).
14) Did you download the latest driver from the producer of your dongle? If not, do so and go to step 16. Widcomm 1.4.2.10 does sometimes work fine, but you're better off, if you can get a Widcom 1.4.3 or 3.0.1.xxx driver.
Added note September 2005: Widcomm Bluetooth drivers used to be available from many Blutooth dongle producer's websites, but because a lot of people cross-downloaded drivers from other producers' websites, it is now nearly impossible to find BT drivers on the web which are not locked to the producers own dongles (through MAC address) or in other ways password protected. It is therefore important that you buy the rigt dongle (see step 1) in the first place!
16) When you have found a more recent Blutooth driver then unzip/unpack the files in a re-findable directory (do not run any install.exe or other exe-files in the unzipped folder). Then repeat steps 7 to 12 and you should be up and running!
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With my headset and class 1 dongle, my whole house is covered with a
fairly good sound quality (sort of like a cellular phone). Even with 15 meters to the dongle and a 15 cm concrete wall in between, a conversation is by all means possible. What a great addition to Skype!!!
However, DO NOT expect the crisp Skype quality that you are used to using a wired headset - most BT headset users are slightly dissappointed with the sound quality! Sound quality seems to depend a lot on the driver and on the headset.
Only downside - you have to repeat step 10 above (only) before I start using the Bluetooth headset after each reboot of my PC, but I can then use it for any number of consecutive calls (until battery runs out after 6 hours!). Alternatively, you can buy "SkypeHeadset" (
www.skypeheadset.co.uk) for 10 GDP / 15 EUR / 20 USD and then your BT headset will connect automatically at each call. I use it and it works well on my PC, despite some driver problems with my Nokia PC Suite...
A tip: Shut down your BT headset using the on/off button on the headset before shutting down you PC - in that way all sound settings are set back to default on your PC instead of all sound getting directed to the BT headset.
I believe that the above procedure will work for most headsets and Bluetooth 1.1 dongles.
If you use my tips and it does not work, please post in this thread in order to get the problem-solving concentrated here. Once your problems solved, please post again to confirm. In that way, we'll get a little smarter every day :wink:
Just wanted to share this great experience!!!
Anders, Denmark
