Have you tested that your bluetooth transceiver works on another computer?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-08-21, 14:05:

Have you tested that your bluetooth transceiver works on another computer?

Yes, I have two pereiod-correct MS Bluetooth transceivers and they work on my win 11 machine. Both also seem recognised correctly in XP; all looks good in device manager under '98. only under services.msc I am not able to start the service.

I have tried increasing the services timeout threshold as per this guide (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.partit ... html%3famp)
But still have the same error, unfortunately.

That kind of error is usually because of a hardware problem...
Does the problem happen regardless of what USB port to plug it into?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-08-22, 14:11:

That kind of error is usually because of a hardware problem...
Does the problem happen regardless of what USB port to plug it into?

Thank you, I gave that a try but get the same error on the other ports, unfortunately.

I was unsure if this was most likely a software or hardware problem. I had thought the Bluetooth support service in XP was something introduced in SP2 or SP3 and would run irrespective of any associated Bluetooth hardware but I'm not sure?

Both transceivers do work fine on other machines, though and it does seem it's just the support service that cannot run.

I ended up going the nuclear route with a fresh install - I was hesitant about this because the machine worked very well otherwise and I had all the driver versions etc in a good place. However, this worked! Now I just need to watch updating the system incase one of the updates along the way breaks the Bluetooth support service. . .

strange_loop wrote on 2024-08-21, 10:58:

Sadly I've not been on the forum really since last winter when I had just discovered it and had really been enjoying reading the topics and appreciated and the guidance and expertise so kindly shared. I had a stroke back then (aged 39!) and this is me just trying to get back into things (albeit typing with one hand. . .)

Oh man, you're my age...keep my fingers crossed for your full recovery. Nice to see you're also back into things like retro/vintage computers, that's a good sign!

kind regards
soggi