After a few days trial it seems I have finally got my Bluetooth set up working how I want it too

MASSIVE THANKS must first go out to EssexBoyRacer, without who's help this would be dead in the water - thanks so much man, you're a complete star! :c lap:

It seems my first problem was the actual device/dongle I had just didn't seem to work. I could have sent it back, but it came from Hong Kong and the return shipping rates just wouldn't have been worth it for a refund

So a new pair of BT dongles from a UK seller on ebay (that has had a specialist BT shop for 5yrs) saw two new dongles arrive, both of which were recognised by both my XP machines when inserted

After trying them using the Microsoft BT Stack, which I didn't like very much, I installed the Widcomm Stack on both machines. A bit of fooking around and a spot of testing over a couple of days sees both devices set up and both machines on Widcomm, which now work great!

Both machines have Nokia PC suite on them, the newer version for my N70 on my machine and a slightly older version on the family machine for my sisters 6230. Whats really cool about the Widcomm stack tho over the MS stack, is that it "remembers" the phones/devices paired to it - something the MS stack doesn't do - so as soon as you boot the PC up and the device is in range with it's BT turned on, they instantly pair. After setting the phones to auto-connect without confimation, as long as the phone is in range it pairs without you having to initiate it With the MS stack, I had to keep pairing the phones every time I went out of range and came back, or booted the machine up - ANNOYING!

Within the Widcomm settings you can set it to only allow certain devices - which is a nice security measure so that no one outside the house or within range can send stuff in or even detect the computers - which is lucky as both the BT dongles have 100m ranges So all I had to do was initate a search from the PC's to find available devices (the other PC, and phones, set them as paired, give em a passcode, and save the setting as "connect to these devices ONLY"

Now I can send files (pics, word doc's, notepad files, anim's, vid files, music, all sorts really) from one PC to the other, and vice versa, and from each phone to each PC (and vice versa) with ease - and without having to always insert a passcode since they are all paired and confirmed Another annoying thing with the MS stack interface was that to send/recieve a file you first had to set the PC you wanted to recieve a file on to "RECIEVE FILE" then send it from the other machine - which defeats the purpous really as I had to go downstairs, set the family PC to "RECIEVE" then go back upstairs and send the file, then go BACK downstairs to print it, use it whatever... Now it's easy, just send the file, select the recipient and job done - auto send, no confirmation needed

Another great thing about the Widcomm software is the ease of use. If I wanna send a file, all I have to do is right click on it and select SEND TO and there's and option for BLUETOOTH, with a drop menu showing the paired devices. One click and it sends it

Anything sent from another PC or phone goes ito a created BLUETOOTH EXCHANGE FOLDER, which can be looked in from another machine using the FILE TRANSFER option should I want to open it remotely from another PC...

And lastly, a really usefull tool is looking at pics on the net. Right click on the pic, even if it's not saved to my PC, there's a SEND TO BLUETOOTH option, click it, it asks for a device, search, find, send. Job done! Pic sent to phone or other PC, no saving or anything

Well chuffed with it - might not be as quick at transferring as it would be on a wired-network, but it's a lot easier to set up (for some reason my PC's won't network without me installing crossover cables between them and I can't be fucked with that) - this makes it nice and simple to send files and docs from my own machine to the family one that is connected to the printer - by the time I get downstairs it's sent, just open the exchange folder, open the file and select print Or fro getting pics and stuff to and from my phones too. Using the Nokia PC Suite, I can send and recieve texts with ease without having to even look at the phone! Usefull since my phone has tiny buttons and I have fat fingers

So yeah, well chuffed really - so thought I'd share

Sorry for the long and probably boring post

 

Bloody hell i had to kick back with a coffee to read all that

Glad you finally got it sorted though, i know how many post it took to get it going!

 

Lol, yeah it was a long post... I thought I'd just put up a post to say I had it working, then thought it best to explain the problem and the cure, and then what the difference was as to why I wanted Widcomm over the MS stack.. Ten mins later the post was finished

It is the bollox tho, this bluetooth stuff

 

Just found out I can also send web pages to my phone aswell

But the phone don't know what to do with em

 

Nice one m8, glad all is finally working. Nothing like a challenge

 

Cheers again dude - couldn't have done it without ya

Now, lets talk about that bluetooth wireless 5.1 audio system

 

pmsl!!! one thing at a time!

 

Can you make a normal printer (connected to a PC using a USB cable) be a bluetooth printer?

 

yes you can. You can buy USB BT interfaces for printers - but I never tried it before.

 

*Goes to look on ebay*....

Fuck, get ready for anohter couple of weeks of me fucking something up

 

Stop buying computer parts on e-bay

 

Why? Cheap