Trick for Pairing Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse With Windows 7 in BC 3.1

Question

Level 1

18 points

Trick for Pairing Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse With Windows 7 in BC 3.1

My Mac:
Mid-2007 iMac 20", 2.4 GHz; OS X 10.6.2; Windows 7 Home; Boot Camp 3.1

My Problem:
No matter what I tried, including all kinds of tips and tricks found in this forum and elsewhere on the web, I could not get my Apple aluminum bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth Mighty Mouse to pair in Windows 7. Windows 7's bluetooth setup panel would see them, from time to time, but never connected.

The same pair connected quite easily with Snow Leopard, and the keyboard connected before I installed BC 3.1 in Win 7 (never did get the MM to connect in Win 7 with BC 3.0). But with BC 3.1 in Win 7, it was no dice for either one until I made an accidental discovery.

While prepping another Apple bluetooth aluminum keyboard for my wife's Mac Mini, it was seen by my iMac's Win 7, which wanted to pair with it.

Aha! A Big Clue! The Win 7 BC 3.1 generic bluetooth drivers wanted to pair with an aluminum keyboard that wasn't already paired with the iMac. So, I booted back into Snow Leopard, connected a USB mouse and keyboard, renamed the bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and then deleted them. I rebooted back into Win 7, then easily set up both renamed mouse and keyboard which paired quickly with Windows.

Note that I first tried deleting them from the Snow Leopard side first, but Win 7 still wouldn't pair with them. That's when I went back to Snow Leopard and renamed them but didn't pair them with the iMac until it was booted into Win 7.

Finally, I rebooted back into Snow Leopard and paired the keyboard and mouse with OS X. Done.

Hope this trick/tip/hint helps someone else with keyboard and mouse bluetooth pairing problems.

iMac 2.4 20" (Mid-2007), Mac OS X (10.6.2), Windows 7 Home, Boot Camp 3.1

Posted on Jan 22, 2010 7:36 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 22, 2010 8:58 PM in response to Jim Scott

Oh my goodness!!
Thank you so much!!
This method worked and now my Magic Mouse is finally working!
-Thanks!!

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Answer 2

Jan 26, 2010 2:58 AM in response to Jim Scott

Thank you Jim:

It REALLY works!

But it took me a while to un-pair and delete the mouse and reboot several times, but it worth, it finally works!

Clement

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Answer 3

Jim Scott Author

Level 1

18 points

Jan 26, 2010 11:20 AM in response to sdclement

You're welcome. My discovery was quite accidental, but that's often how things happen ... if you're paying attention and are looking for clues.

Sorry you had to trial and error before you succeeded, but as you've probably found, it is necessary to rename the bluetooth devices first, then delete them from OS X.

I don't understand why this trick was necessary, or even what caused it to happen. I've got 6 Win 7 installations via Boot Camp on 6 Intel Macs (2 white MacBooks, 1 Unibody MacBook, a Core Duo Mac Mini, a 27" iMac and the 20" 2.4 Mid-2007 iMac). All were running 10.6.2 and Win 7 (aren't Family Packs wonderful?) via Boot Camp 3.0 more or less without problems, except as noted in my first post.

Only the 20" iMac had problems after the Boot Camp 3.1. Not only did I have a devil of a time pairing the keyboard and mouse, but I also lost the Win 7 activation on the iMac 20" and the OS X partition started showing up as "EFI Boot". All happened right after I updated Boot Camp 3.0 to 3.1 via download from Apple while running Win 7.

I've heard reports of other Mac users discovering Boot Camp had done a FUBAR job on their machines, but this is my first experience. My guess is that there's some dialogue going on between 10.6, Win 7 and Boot Camp that shouldn't be happening. What I really don't understand is why my other 5 Macs didn't have any problems at all with the Boot Camp upgrade to 3.1. Let's hope the Apple Boot Camp team can reverse engineer my discovery and improve the next version of BC.

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Answer 4

Jim Scott Author

Level 1

18 points

Jan 30, 2010 12:30 PM in response to Jim Scott

I had to use my own trick again. Even though I was able to successfully pair the Apple bluetooth aluminum keyboard (first gen., 3 batteries) and the bluetooth Mighty Mouse with Win 7 using BC 3.1, I still had lingering problems on the OS X 10.6.2 side that required a complete reformatting and repartitioning of the iMac's hard drive

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Answer 5

Jim Scott Author

Level 1

18 points

Jan 30, 2010 12:31 PM in response to Jim Scott

I had to use my own trick again. Even though I was able to successfully pair the Apple bluetooth aluminum keyboard (first gen., 3 batteries) and the bluetooth Mighty Mouse with Win 7 using BC 3.1, I still had lingering problems on the OS X 10.6.2 side that required a complete reformatting and repartitioning of the iMac's hard drive. This required a reinstallation of Snow Leopard and Win 7.

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Answer 6

b noir

Level 9

72,324 points

Jan 30, 2010 12:37 PM in response to Jim Scott

Let's hope the Apple Boot Camp team can reverse engineer my discovery and improve the next version of BC.

Have you put a bug report through to Apple about the troubles on the 20", Jim? If not, and if you have the time, there's usually a "Bug report" feedback type on the product feedback forms. Here's a link through to a page that gathers together all the various hardware and software product feedback forms:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

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Answer 7

Jim Scott Author

Level 1

18 points

Jan 30, 2010 12:43 PM in response to Jim Scott

Sorry for the multiple incomplete posts. Pilot error. :^)

As I was saying, I had to do a reinstall of SL and Win 7. I reinstalled SL via Carbon Copy Cloner. Then I used Boot Camp to install Win 7. Interestingly, both the Apple bluetooth keyboard and Mighty Mouse were discovered and paired automatically by SL as well as Win 7. The Win 7 pairing even continued through the installation of Boot Camp 3.0 drivers from the 10.6 SL disk.

But the installation of Boot Camp 3.1 drivers after download from Apple killed the bluetooth pairing of both keyboard and mouse. All pairing attempts in Win 7 failed and I had to use a USB keyboard and mouse to reboot into SL where I used my renaming and deleting trick.

The keyboard and mouse then paired quickly and easily in Win 7, and again in SL after a reboot.

So there is definitely a big problem with bluetooth pairing and Boot Camp 3.1 in Win 7, at least on my iMac 2.4 20" (Mid-2007) machine.

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Answer 8

Jim Scott Author

Level 1

18 points

Jan 30, 2010 12:49 PM in response to b noir

Thanks. No, I haven't done a bug report. Perhaps that's because I assume the same people who deal with bug reports also monitor Apple Discussions. But I'll look into doing one.

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Answer 9

Jan 30, 2010 2:17 PM in response to Jim Scott

It's ridiculous to have to go through these procedures simply to pair a BT keyboard and mouse in Win7 and OSX. I'm still in OSX 10.5.8, but have upgraded my bootcamp drivers to 3.1. I unpaired deleted the Mighty Mouse and BT keyboard on the Mac side. Went into Win 7 and paired the Mighty Mouse and keyboard. The keyboard was VERY finicky and took a while to pair.
Eventually I got them both paired and working in Win7. Then I boot back into OSX, pair Mighty Mouse with no problems, but the keyboard refuses to connect. UGH.

Again I say that this is frickin' ridiculous. So now I'll book back into Win7 and unpair the keyboard, just so I can use it in OSX.

Thoughts?

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Answer 10

Jim Scott Author

Level 1

18 points

Jan 30, 2010 3:37 PM in response to Jabulani Jonny

Yes, it's ridiculous, not to mention frustrating and maddening, especially since it took Apple about three months to issue Boot Camp 3.1 after Win 7 went on sale.

Thoughts? As an earlier poster noted, it sometimes takes a couple of attempts at renaming, deleting, pairing, etc. to make it work. Since I only had the problem with BC 3.1 and bluetooth pairing on one out of 6 Macs, my instincts suggest that it takes a certain combination of Apple bluetooth hardware and bluetooth drivers to make it happen. As another poster suggested, I filed a bug report on BC 3.1 and bluetooth pairing with my Mid-2007 iMac. Since pairing happened without a problem for me in 10.6.2 and then in Win 7 with Boot Camp 3.0 and failed in Win 7 after installation of 3.1, that tells me there's a bug in 3.1 ... for some Macs. Your problem has occurred with 10.5.8, which suggests that it's not the version of OS X that's causing the pairing difficulties.

If multiple attempts to use my pairing tricks don't work for OS X and Win 7, but you had no problems pairing with Boot Camp 3.0, perhaps you should roll back to 3.0 -- unless 3.1 solved another issue or two for you.

I'm beginning to believe Apple didn't fully test bluetooth pairing before it released 3.1.

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Answer 11

Jim Scott Author

Level 1

18 points

Jan 30, 2010 4:20 PM in response to Jabulani Jonny

<The keyboard was VERY finicky and took a while to pair.>

A further thought: This may be a tipoff that your keyboard batteries need to be replaced. A fresh set of batteries made pairing with Win 7 much faster and easier for me, during my early struggles.

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Answer 12

Jan 30, 2010 8:25 PM in response to Jim Scott

I'll try fresh batteries, but these were pretty fresh to begin with. Booted back into Win 7 and removed the keyboard from the BT devices. Booted back to OSX and it still won't connect using the BT setup. Sheesh.

Not sure what else to do in Win 7 since I've already removed the keyboard from the devices. I've restarted a few times as well.

I wonder if there's a funkified plist file somewhere.

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Answer 13

Jan 30, 2010 8:41 PM in response to Jim Scott

Well I'll be... put fresh batteries in and it paired on the Mac OSX side. ***? Not sure if I want to try my luck again on the Win 7 side. I'll let it rest a while.

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Answer 14

Jim Scott Author

Level 1

18 points

Jan 30, 2010 9:55 PM in response to Jabulani Jonny

You might try deleting both bluetooth devices in Win 7, then shut down. Then start up in OS X and delete both bluetooth devices, then shut down. Then start up in OS X, pair them, rename them, delete them and shut. Tomorrow, pair first in Win 7, then in OS X, shutting down completely then restarting each time. Complete shutdowns instead of restarts often gets around problems when all else fails.

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Answer 15

anton_l

Level 1

4 points

Feb 23, 2010 1:02 AM in response to Jim Scott

Found this trick through Googling.

Man it works! Thank god.. I went through all the trouble of reinstalling boot camp to reinstalling generic bluetooth driver. Finally. Apple should start to write a support article about this in their support database.

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