Toshiba Bluetooth Stack & XP x64

J Bones

Hey fellas, new around here.

I'm running XP x64, and just purchased a D-Link DBT-120 bluetooth dongle (the newest version, revision "c") so I can use my Cardo Scala bluetooth headset with Windows to talk on Skype. For the latest version of their dongle, D-Link has evidently licensed Toshiba's bluetooth driver stack, a change from previous versions that used the popular Widcomm stack.

If you've ever tried to sync up a bluetooth headset with XP SP 2, you know there are a host of difficulties. #1, Microsoft's default bluetooth drivers have no support for audio. It doesn't much help that they do their darndest to override any third-party drivers you attempt to install. That said, there are a bunch of suggested workarounds for this, and the net is plastered with troubleshooting guides.

My issue, so far, is that I just can't get the Toshiba drivers installed. I've tried the version on the included disc, an updated version from Toshiba's site (link), and also the x64 version (of course) from the same. When I go to install the drivers, the software interface installs fine. But the drivers themselves just won't install. Once I'm prompted to connect the dongle, the installer either crashes or just doesn't detect the dongle, and asks me once again to connect it.

Windows is detecting the dongle fine, however. It either installs its first-party drivers without prompting me (right in the middle of the Toshiba installation), or flashes up a bubble notifying me that the device failed to install and may not function properly. If the former, the installer crashes/closes, the installation process incomplete. If the latter, the installer fails to detect the dongle and goes into its loop of asking me to connect it.

Where do I go from here? One suggestion I've come across is to let Windows install the generic drivers, and just exit out of the third-party driver installer once the interface software has been installed. Then, navigate to the default driver in device manager and update the driver manually, pointing it to the .ini in the Toshiba driver installation folder. Trouble is when I do this, Windows tells me an appropriate driver cannot be found, and to make sure that the driver I'm attempting to install is compatible with XP x64. Even when said driver is supposed to be the x64 edition. I have no experience updating drivers manually, so I'm sure of what's supposed to happen and just what could be going wrong.

Any idea where I should go from here? Your advice is much appreciated. Thanks for reading!