Windows Bluetooth driver updates
If you’ve ever tried to get a Bluetooth headset to work in Windows Vista, you know you’re in for a world of hurt if you want to try and make it work with the existing Microsoft Bluetooth stack. You have to steal drivers from other manufacturers or basically just give up and switch to using the Broadcom WIDCOMM Bluetooth drivers.
For the longest time I refused to use the WIDCOMM drivers because their look and feel was stuck in the Windows XP days – it wasn’t horrible, but it didn’t integrate nicely in with Vista and it completely took over the Bluetooth stack which I didn’t want to do because I was afraid it would prevent my Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000 (Bluetooth keyboard & mouse combo) from working.
Well, the other day I decided to replace my old Plantronics Explorer 320 headset (Bluetooth 1.2) with a new Sony Playstation 3 Bluetooth headset (cheap, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR). I went and paired up the new headset with Vista, however the sound was just as choppy as before and it really didn’t seem to be any better; those old Bluetooth Audio drivers I hacked in to Vista needed updating…
I did a ton of searching and came across most of the same articles I found when I was first looking for drivers to add in A2DP/HFP/HSP Bluetooth profiles to the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. I tried grabbing newer drivers for the Dell Notebook Bluetooth drivers, but those didn’t work at all. I went searching for more drivers but they all seemed to be based on the same drivers (ironically all made by Broadcom). As a last ditch effort, I went to Broadcom’s website and grabbed their latest driver download just to see if maybe I could extract the driver files and manually update my drivers without installing the whole thing.
As it turns out however, the new Broadcom WIDCOMM Bluetooth drivers aren’t a complete overwrite of the Windows Vista drivers – they appear to finally just throw in all the extra Bluetooth profile drivers that are missing from Microsoft’s Bluetooth stack. I was quite surprised, as I thought I was hosing my system when I ran the installer to try and just extract the files; the Bluetooth control panel and other areas of Vista all appear just as they did before but with extra features now available!
I paired the new headset with my system and watched as the new drivers kicked in and made everything work perfectly. Rather than being stuck with low-quality mono in/out from my headset, I now get to enjoy stereo sound and recording which makes a ton of difference in the audio quality from a Bluetooth headset.
So, if you’re looking to get your Bluetooth device working with Windows Vista or Windows 7 and it just won’t work – chances are you’re missing the required Bluetooth profile drivers and you should seriously consider installing the latest Broadcom WIDCOMM Bluetooth drivers which will update the existing Microsoft Bluetooth stack on your system.