How to use a bluetooth headset on a thinkpad laptop
By ET
I just bought a BlueTooth headset from Logitech. It is supposed to be used with a blue tooth enabled mobile phone. But since I spend most of my time with my laptop (a thinkpad with built-in blue tooth support), I thought it would be nice to use it as a headphone for the laptop, too.
It is not as easy as it sounds to set it up. In the beginning, my laptop just complains about not finding any bluetooth equipment around. I tried all kinds of solutions including turning off my wireless adaptor on the laptop and reinstalling the bluetooth driver.
Turned out the Microsoft driver for bluetooth included in Windows XP sp2 does not support bluetooth headsets. So I found that I need to install a Wincomm driver. Spent some time searching and found that IBM has it here.
Updated the driver, and it still complains not finding the headset. After searching around, I found that installing the IBM driver leaves a directory at C:\DRIVERS\WIN\BDCACT, there is a installation executable called BTW.msi, installed the BlueTooth Software Package from Wincomm. This time I got no problem paired the two devices.
By setting the audio device in Skype as “BlueTooth Audio”, I’m able to use this headset to make wireless phone calls through Skype. This is what I call cool. 
December 16th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been looking for a way to make this work for weeks. It took me less than an hour from the time I found your post to get this working.
Thanks again,
Gary
December 16th, 2005 at 3:49 pm
That’s very cool. I’m glad this is helpful to you, as it took me a while trying to figure out the reason…
December 17th, 2005 at 6:06 am
Not sure that I understand the second sentence in paragraph 4. Do you mean the following?
Installing the IBM driver leaves a directory at C:\DRIVERS\WIN\BDCACT.
In this directory is an installation executable called BTW.msi.
I ran this executable which installed the Bluetooth software package from Wincomm.
Thanks in advance for clarification .. Gary
December 18th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
yes, all you have to do is to run the BTW.msi file, and restart the machine, then you can find the device in the bluetooth neighborhood.
December 24th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
When I ran btw.msi it uninstalled Bluetooth! Now I’m worse off than be3fore – how do I resintall the Bluetooth III software?
December 26th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
reinstall? I guess.
January 18th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Thanks! This works well for me.
Only thing is that using the button on the headset seems to cause all kinds of problems, and you have to turn it off and on again to reconnect.
Shame that the button doesn’t stop Skype calls effectively…
March 30th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
There is one important step which has kept me from setting this up properly – I have to DISABLE the Microsoft driver manually after the software installation, or else the driver overrides everything.
See the following link for details:
http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?t=10822&start=315&sid=5b35914c0fb4ef70fcfc928a79ca23f9
Other than that, however, it works well. Thank you for posting the tips!
May 14th, 2006 at 12:16 am
Hi,
I followed Tam instructions..disabling microsoft bluetooth driver and enabling the other driver. The headset worked fine and able to receive calls. But my current bluetooth (Microsoft mouse & Keyboard) are not working properly. Maybe I have to search for ideal Bluetooth Driver that works for all devices.
May 17th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
I heard Microsoft was releasing a new driver to support earphones, but I can’t find the source of information now.
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:44 am
I have an IBM ThinkPad laptop and I have downloaded the Bluetooth driver from that link, but, on the page it is stated it only works for – ThinkPad R40
- ThinkPad R50 (*1), R50p (*1)
- ThinkPad R51 (Machine Type 1829, 1830, 1831, and 1836) (*1) (*2)
- ThinkPad T40, T40p (*1), T41, T41p (*1), T42, T42 (*1)
- ThinkPad X31
- ThinkPad X40. I have a R51 2887 or something like that. Anyway, it is not stated in the list and, if i try to download software from their web-site by auto detection of my system, that will not appear in the list.
Could you please tell me what kind of ThinkPad you have? Thank you.
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:21 pm
I have R50p. R51 should work too, it’s just that when the document is created, your model number had not been produced. Just give it a try, good luck!
May 24th, 2006 at 1:33 am
I will try it. Thank you for the encouragment.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:35 am
I can’t believe I found your post! I have the same laptop (R50p) and the same bluetooth headset (Mobile Freedom) that you have! I just purchased the headset and received it yesterday in the mail. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to get it working. I followed the steps in your post, but still nothing. What exactly do you do to pair your device (Control Panel -> Bluetooth Devices or Bluetooth Configuration)? Do you have a conflict with the Microsoft Bluetooth stack on your machine (mine registers as having both)? My device will pair with the Bluetooth Devices App (which may be Microsoft’s), but then the Bluetooth Configuration app (which was installed by the IBM software) says nothing is connected. Any thoughts?
May 25th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Ricky, I really don’t know what went wrong. I read my post again, I think I did not miss any important points. From you comment, it seems that you did not uninstall the microsoft driver?
May 25th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
I think that was the problem. In your description above you don’t specifically mention the need to uninstall the Microsoft driver, just to install the IBM one. So that’s what I did. I actually was able to get it working a little while ago by disabling the Microsoft driver (not uninstalling it) and reinstalling the IBM one. This wasn’t all, however. I then had to open up the driver properties of the IBM driver and manually install the Widcomm driver (it’s the one that’s unlabelled, but unsigned in the list). After a restart it works. It now uses the IBM config tools by default, which are much more flexible and has all of the needed profiles (such as headset). Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
May 26th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Great! I’m glad it’s working for you now.
June 15th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Perhaps a bit offtopic so I apoligize. But I was wondering if anyone here has also tried pairing bluetooth enabled PC headphones (the ones that normally require a bluetooth transmitter plugged into your pc) to your laptop, and if you’ve had any luck with it.
I’m about to get a Dell SPX laptop with built in bluetooth and I’d love the freedome of a headphone/mic headset that could be paired directly to the system for gaming
June 19th, 2006 at 8:15 am
I finaly got the headset ( Motorola HS-815 ) and I have installed the drivers from IBM website. They work fine, I managed to pair the headset and the laptop, at some point I was able to listen to music, use it with Skype, etc., but now, when I connect the headset, the communication is only one way, from the laptop to the headset – at first I thought it happened because the connection was set-up as secure – after removing this it worked for a few days until it started to generate the same problem, with or without the connection beeing set-up as secured.
Got any ideas about this?
Thank you.
June 28th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Hi,
I tried following your instructions as well as those from the Lenovo site. After installing the IBM software I only had the choice to install 2 signed drivers. One from Microsoft and one from Actiontec. Neither one is a Wincomm driver. Looking around I found btwusb.inf in the C:\DRIVERS\WIN\BDCACT dir and that installed as an unsigned driver. However it makes the bluetooth deceives dissapear from the network section. And as a result bluetooth stops to work entirely.
Any hints?
June 28th, 2006 at 2:25 am
Ok, its now sort of working. Suddenly it started installing more drivers. Maybe I was not patient enough the first time around.
Headphone is working, but my Pulsar 590A is not detected as an Audio Device which means I cannot use the mic for now.
August 9th, 2006 at 8:48 am
Has anyone configured their bluetooth headset to be used with Yahoo Messenger? If so – how/ what does one need to do?
September 3rd, 2006 at 7:33 am
I just found this site in my search for a way to make Nokia Wireless Headset HS-36W work with my Lattitude D620 so I can Skype without wires. I’m in China and the stuff I’ve bought has directions in Chinese – oops can’t read it. So I downloaded the english from Nokia. Any suggestions where to go for help with this. My computer has the internatl bluetooth card, but can’t figure out how to make the headset readable by the computer. Thanks for any direction you can give me. Joyce
November 11th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
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January 12th, 2007 at 7:57 am
ET, thanks for posting these instructions – I did finally manage to get Bluetooth working on my IBM X40, and connect with a Logitech headset.
I’d like to add a few things, that might also clarify a few questions that other people had posted here.
* installing the software: You wrote that you ran BTW.msi, I did it a bit differently: Running the executable that is available from the IBM webpage does only extract a bunch of files in C:\DRIVERS\WIN\BDCACT. Instead of looking for BTW.msi, I ran SETUP.EXE. This is a full fledged installation program.
* In the installation process, I followed closely the detailed installation instructions that are available also from the IBM/Lenovo webpage in file bthwxp1o.txt.
* Still, after having installed the package, the new Bluetooth software did not recognize the driver (saying something like “no bluetooth available”) I opened the contral panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager / Bluetooth / IBM integrated Bluetooth / Update driver. Here, clicked on “install from specific location”, then “don’t search, I’ll choose the driver”. This gave me a list of two drivers to choose from, both had the same name, but one had the “digitally signed” icon next to it. Here, I chose the *unsigned* driver (Thanks to Rick, in his posting he wrote: “manually install the Widcomm driver, its the one thats unlabelled, but unsigned in the list”
* Additonally, I disabled the Mircosoft Bluetooth driver in the device manager
* With that done, I could finally start the installed IBM Bluetooth software. It started with a nice setup wizard that allowed me to connect my headset.
Thanks to ET & the other posters for their helpful comments,
anton
January 14th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Hey Anton,
Thanks for the comments, it was so long time ago since I played with setting up the headset, there must be something new now.
Thanks, everyone, for making this thread so particularly useful to others!
May 29th, 2007 at 3:44 am
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you!
July 31st, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Guys – you are the GREATEST!!!
I’ve been mocking aorund withs this for some time and gave up. Your input made me try again – and – it works!!
Thanks!!
September 1st, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Hi guys
U seem to be the best to handle this. I’ve run through the stuff you mention. But although I can pair my IBM Thinkpad R50 with the Logitech Mobile Pro Bluetooth Headset, I just can’t see “Bluetooth Audio” to select sound to not go to the speakers but the Bluetooth Headset. I want to use my headset with skype.
Anyone have any idea? Really appreciate it, getting very tiered of trying and trying.
Thanks
September 20th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Hey, I know this isn’t exactly what you’re talking about, but you all seem pretty savvy. I DON’T have bluetooth built into my Gateway laptop but I bought a PC850 Laptop USB Bluetooth adapter for Motorola. I have a Motorola headset. Where can I find a driver to support the usb device (the seller neglected to send me one) and how can I hook up the headset to it? I’m planning on using this for Skype.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Amazingly, this is still relevant in 2009… Thanks!
I’m using ThinkPad T400, and the BTW.msi is hidden in C:\Drivers\TPBTooth\Win32 (or Win64, respective to your OS).
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