Installing Bluetooth on Windows 2008

I’ve been running Vista for over a year now, and I wanted to make the switch to Windows 2008 a few months ago.  I have an awesome Dell XPS M1330 with a Core 2 Duo T8300 CPU and 4GB of Ram.  It’s freaking light and has about a 5 hour battery life with the LED screen I got mine with.  I’m all bout getting every last drop of performance out of my computer, so I decided I would go with the 64-bit version of Windows 2008 Standard.

Installing Windows 2008 64-bit was actually a breeze.  It took about 15 minutes actually to install on the Dell XPS.  After turning on a few services like the Wireless Service, Themes, Windows Audio, and a few other things, I realized “Where the heck is Bluetooth!”  I have a ton of Bluetooth devices so It was totally unacceptable!

Anyway, here is the simple step by step instructions on how to hack the drivers inf files that come with Windows 2008 to allow you install Bluetooth.

Step by Step Guide to Installing Bluetooth on Windows 2008

1. Your going to want to create a folder for yourself to work with, so create C:DriversBT
2. Go to: C:WindowsSystem32DriverStoreFileRepository
3. You will notice a bunch of folders, your going to want to go into folder that you need to grab files from, and copy the following files to your C:DriversBT:
   1. bth.inf
   2. bthenum.sys
   3. bthmodem.sys
   4. bthpan.inf
   5. bthpan.sys
   6. bthport.sys
   7. bthprint.inf
   8. bthspp.inf
   9. bthusb.sys
   10. fsquirt.exe
   11. hidbth.inf
   12. hidbth.sys
   13. hidclass.sys
   14. hidparse.sys
   15. hidusb.sys
   16. input.inf
   17. mdmbtmdm.inf
   18. netirda.inf
   19. rfcomm.sys
   20. tdibth.inf
4. There is one other file you need, modemui.dll and you can grab it from C:WindowsSystem32
5. Now you should have a folder that looks like this:
   
6. Next go through each inf file and change anywhere you see “NTamd64…1” to “NTamd64…3”.  Basically by doing this, you are telling Windows to allow you to install the driver.  Pretty simple.
   1. bth.inf – Line 47 and Line 132
   2. bthpan.inf – Line 29 and 31
   3. bthprint.inf – Line 19 and Line 21
   4. bthspp.inf – Line 12 and 14
   5. hidbth.inf – Line 29 and 34
   6. mdmbtmdm.inf – Line 19 and 27
   7. tdibth.inf – Line 15 and 17
7. You are now ready to go.  The next step is to load up your device manager and find the bluetooth hardware that you need to install.  Click Update Driver, and point to to your bluetooth driver files.  For me I pointed it to C:delldriversR1401353100_216 which was where I put my dell drivers for my Dell Wireless 355 Module.
8. Once It installs, you will get a prompt that “Windows needs to install driver software for your Unknown Device”.  Just click “Locate and install driver software (recommended)”.
9. Point to the modified files in c:driversbt
   
10. Windows will freak out because you modified the inf files.  No problem, just click install anyway.
    
      
11. You will see three separate installs for your Bluetooth device
    
12. Here comes the second one.
    
     
13. One more!
    
14. And finally you know have Bluetooth running on Windows 2008! 
    
15. It is very exciting to have that Bluetooth icon in the control panel!
    

Anyway, that’s the magic trick to get that pesky Bluetooth working again.  I know had I not done this, I would have been switching back to Vista pretty quick!