Problem Bootcamp Windows 10 & Bluetooth

Unfortunately, I stumbled upon this thread just a little too late, which meant that I had already reinstalled Windows. Now ,y keyboard is working properly, even without having to apply @Andrew's solution, but there's no such luck with the mouse... It just will not connect. Prior to the reinstall, it kept trying and failing. Now Windows just says Paired, but the bloody thing won't connect. There's no button to force a try in the UI either, but that may be because the device has to actually initiate the connection; not the computer. Unfortunately, uninstalling the updates mentioned above will not work, simply because they were applied as part of a big ol' cumulative update, and therefore cannot be uninstalled separately... The big menace here is that the mouse actually did work before Windows started applying updates... If only my Mighty Mouse wouldn't have had such a ridiculously short wire, it would have been possible to use it instead of the Magic Mouse 2 in Windows (as a temporary measure, one hopes), but now it really isn't... It really is kind of a shame that Microsoft felt the need to forcefully disable the mouse (or at least that's how I feel), even though it works just fine. The same was the case under Windows, until a few weeks ago. I guess I can only hope for improvement on the Windows side for this (i.e. a new update set out to fix this)...

Update 2018/04/02: After reinstalling Windows 10 twice (for which I use a fully automated image that contains every bit of boot camp related stuff one might need), I found that my situation is a bit quirkier still than what I describe above. The keyboard actually works fine until such a time as when I try to connect the mouse. After that, the keyboard goes into this connect/disconnect frenzy that it doesn’t want to come out of, even after restarting the system, with a full power-down in between.

The real problem here, then, seems to be the mouse. This is, in fact, true in more than one way. I can successfully use the keyboard when I attach the lightning cable; it’s just the bluetooth bit of things that makes matters complicated. As we all know, this workaround does not apply to the mouse, whereas it seems to be the instigator of the whole issue, at least on my end.

As for now, there is no real solution if you, like me, got the affected updates as part of a cumulated update. You see, the issue started when Microsoft released two updates which were meant to resolve bluetooth related issues (specifically bluetooth 4 and bluetooth 4 LE). Unfortunately, I can’t remember the exact knowledge base numbers for those. If you’ve been using Windows 10 quite extensively (i.e. before the cumulative update encompassing them got released), you may be able to remove the individual updates and then hiding them if they’re offered again (requires downloading a trouble shooter from Microsoft) so that they’re not reinstalled. However, if, like me, you got the affronting patches through the cumulative update of February (which brings the OS Build to 17.09) then you’re SOL. This is because you cannot uninstall the smaller updates mentioned above (since you never got them in the first place) and uninstalling the cumulative updates brings back a positive shedload of other issues you’d rather be without...

Those of you who’ve experienced success with older accessories, such as the Apple Wireless Keyboard: the issue seems to be caused by the bluetooth 4(/LE) preamble (part of the handshake). As the aforementioned devices do not use Bluetooth 4, this could be why they do work…

For the moment, the situation is out of our control. All we can do is wait for either a correcting update by Microsoft, or a bluetooth, mouse and keyboard driver update by Apple, so as to work around the issues presented by the security patches Microsoft released my Microsoft.

Only the second generation of the Magic Mouse and Trackpad seem to be affected. The behaviour would confirm my suspicion of the problem lying with the preamble of devices that use the Bluetooth 4 (/LE) protocol, which occurs after a request is being made to connect to a (paired) device. I don't have to re-pair the device upon returning to MacOS, but a manual reconnect is necessary. This involves connecting the lightning cable and then disconnecting it.

I think I will be reinstalling Windows 10 and then get used to using different peripherals for the time being. However it may be, we DO need a quick fix, and whether Microsoft or Apple be the supplier of it, is of no real importance to me…

igmackenzie wrote:

Clearly the situation is very different for different people. You tend to be making the assumption that we are all experiencing the same. We're not!

We are! This is exactly MY situation as well! The only difference is that you have a Magic Trackpad 2; I have a Magic Mouse 2. The Magic Mouse 2 causes the same issue to my Magic Keyboard as you Magic Trackpad 2 does to yours. So the situation is the same, except for the actual pointing device.

I was experiencing quite some difficulty bringing my point across, it seems… But we do have the same issue. All of us have a pointing device which doesn’t work wirelessly, and if we try to get it to work, the keyboard stops working wirelessly. But as long as we do not touch it or turn it off, nothing is the matter. That is: the keyboard would continue to work. That enables you to continue to use it, along with another mouse.

But I made the suggestion for you to use a cable with your Magic Trackpad 2, because you can. And if you plug it in whilst still in MacOS, your keyboard will continue to work in wireless operation, because the Trackpad won’t switch to Bluetooth mode. It’s the bluetooth connection for the mouse and trackpad which is causing the problems; not that in the keyboard. Plugging a cable into the Magic Trackpad 2 is an option; it effectively switches off its radio and you can use it in wired mode. If this would have been an option with the Magic Mouse 2, that would certainly be what I’d have done. You at least wouldn’t have to use another mouse; just using the MT2 in wired mode would already be enough. As long as you’d remember plugging it in as soon as (or before) you come out of MacOS. That way, you’d be able to continue using your MT2 as well as your Magic Keyboard.

By the way, a reliable source told me that the next major update to Windows 10 is due at any moment. Let us pray the update includes a fix for our problem. I also found out that Apple is indeed, as I suspected, not the only brand for which operation problems exist with some bluetooth 4 devices.

igmackenzie wrote:

As an experiment, I'm going to install Windows onto a new Bootcamp partition on my Fusion Drive. Then we will see when/if the problem occurs.

I'll report back later.

Well, not that we needed convincing, but I've just done a new install of Windows, and yep, whenever the 4088776 and 4058043 are installed, bang goes the MT2!

Oh well.... I guess it's a waiting game now.

shad0vv wrote:

Everyone please try updating to the latest update from Windows. My iMac Pro's bluetooth devices are finally working again and I'm so happy!!

April 10, 2018—KB4093112 (OS Build 16299.371)

Alas… I can’t seem to find a way to update my previous reply… So we’re posting a new one…

I can confirm that this works! So this issue can be considered resolved as far as I’m concerned… Installing the update mentioned in Shad0vv’s post does indeed resolve the issue.

happymanslab wrote:

Same issue.

Initially this worked fine. But then I enabled Hyper-V and this totally breaks all bluetooth on my iMac Pro.

Disabling Hyper-V made bluetooth work fine until I updated to Windows 10 1804 and now no bluetooth again.

I contacted Apple by telephone and in the end they told me to contact Microsoft because Windows is 3rd party software.

So… Why exactly did you enable Hyper-V in the first place? It’s not like you’ll be virtualising another system from within Windows, will you? You’d be way better off using MacOS when it comes to that; at least if using a real Windows (Server-)based host is out of the question.

Anyway, for me, upgrading Windows 10 to build 1804 did seem to fix the issue. I did get the device driver update (Apple, Inc. — USBDevice) of which @emulajavi posted a screenshot, before then. I have had no problems since upgrading Windows to build 1804. But I do realise that this may still be only temporary… I’m on a 2017 iMac 27”, by the way.

What this does prove is that things are currently panning out very differently indeed for every one of us…

VGonzalez1973 wrote:

I think that’s a lot of BS by Apple’s part. You manufacture a device? - You provide the drivers! Apple should care about Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard, and any other device drivers for Windows. They just don’t.

To say that Windows is a 3^rd party software and wash their hands, is more of the old stupidity. A lot of us Software Engineers, Developers, Programmers, are buying Macs because the warranty that we can run both Windows and MacOS. That capacity changed the Mac from being a toy to be a professional tool. It is Apple trying to prove us wrong?

Feel free to think whatever you want, but in this case Apple is at least partially right. The problem is not with the device driver itself; it has worked properly in Windows 10 since the inception of the OS. The problem was, in fact, caused by an update that Microsoft had released mid-February, which caused problems in particular with Bluetooth 4.x/LE devices. Devices that use older versions of the protocol were never affected by this issue to begin with, which is why the first generation of the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad DID work, as did the Apple Wireless Keyboard, since they used Bluetooth 2.0.

The part for which you could and, in my opinion, should blame Apple, is the absolute lack of configurability for the devices when used in Windows. The mice have no device-specific options at all, nor does the keyboard. Where the hotkeys are concerned, only volume and media control work (to some extent) and neither can be turned off. All of this functionality is provided by the Boot Camp Control Panel, and the user has NO influence over it, at all. THAT is where the blame for Apple lies. As far as the intermittent way in which some of the devices operate since the February security patches, that’s Microsoft at fault!

emulajavi wrote:

Why is it so difficult for Apple to release proper drivers for its products for Windows??

In one week they could program drivers with all the multi fingers gestures for MM2 and MT2 and also enable Bluet pairing by plugging in the Lighting cable, like on macOS.

Don’t exaggerate! If you want true support, it will take more than the alleged “week” to write, not least optimise the device drivers. A device driver that isn’t properly optimised can be worse than having none at all, as is the present situation… I do agree with the gist of your message, though… Apple would do us an enormous favour if they would finally come off the generic way the devices operate...

Got the same problem, tried everything written here, now what I do is start clicking the mouse just before the password screen appears on Windows and then the mouse works... go figure

I have exactly same. It stopped working after High Sierra update. I noticed it works when the WiFi is off, on macOS everything is fine. I reinstalled everything, macOS, windows, drivers, no result. Same thing with different mouses.

While it's not an iMac, I'm having the same problem on a 13-inch 2016 MacBook Pro (with Touchbar), which I run with an external display and Apple Bluetooth Keyboard at work. Running Windows 10 1703 (Creators Update), my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard was connected automatically without issue. After updating to 1709, the bluetooth keyboard will connect briefly, then loose connection (although it's listed as "connected" in Bluetooth Devices in Win10.

When running Win 10 1709 on late 2013 27" iMac, there is no issues.

February 13, 2018—KB4074588 (OS Build 16299.248) has

• Improves and reduces conditions where certain Bluetooth keyboards drop keys during reconnection scenarios.
• Corrects mouse delays for devices that incorrectly report the battery level status. (Is this the new BT LE/4.x causing issues?)

January 3, 2018—KB4056892 (OS Build 16299.192) has

Addresses issue where the touch keyboard doesn’t support the standard layout for 109 keyboards.

It is unlikely that Microsoft tested these updates on a Mac with Bootcamp Windows. 😉

For me, I see the same behaviour you are describing, but it's the Magic Trackpad 2 causing the problem, not the the mouse.

Magic Keyboard becomes erratic if the MT2 is switched on. Magic Mouse funnily enough works OK for me. If I boot into Windows with the MT2 just switched on, it causes it to need re-pairing when I go back into macOS.

My only solution is to keep the MT2 switched off whenever I boot into Windows.

All very, very frustrating. We need a fix, and soon!

There was another thread I read that actually solved the issue. I forget the details exactly, so I will try to refind it and post a link. I was messing around with it after it was working and made it stop working.

The general steps were to update the mouse and keyboard driver to be generic apple wireless bluetooth mouses. If I remember correctly it was go to device manager --> update driver --> select from the list --> Choose apple --> wireless keyboard. Repeat for mouse.

The issue for me now is that Apple no longer appears as a "brand" when it used to. Not sure what I did after playing with various things trying to figure to root cause.

Anyway, I'll see if I can reinstall windows and start from scratch sometime next week.

If there is a separate driver, it might. But as far as I know, there is only one driver for the Magic Mouse (AMM) family. In fact, looking at the AppleWirelessMouse.inf file, it seems that there is only one Windows driver for ALL Apple Wireless mice. If this is true, that would not just include the Magic Mouse first and second generation, but also the Wireless Mighty Mouse (AWMM). Granted, the feature set for each of these devices is limited in Windows (compared to that in MacOS), but I find it really hard to believe that the files needed to initialise the AWMM would be the same as those for the AMM1 or AMM2.

However, this could be the case if some of the files contain “trunks” of payload which are loaded upon detection of a specific device, and would then enable device-specific features such as the multitouch zone on the back of the Magic Mouse 1 and 2.

Something similar takes place for many of the printer drivers found on Windows Update. Indeed, even Apple Software Update applies a similar technique for printer drivers. When a printer is connected, the system first detects the Vendor (i.e. HP or Epson). Then a driver package is downloaded that contains all of the printers within a family. For example, in the case of a HP LaserJet 1320, a driver package would be downloaded containing most, if not all of the HP LaserJet family device drivers. Then, upon installation of the device, further characteristics are identified, at which time eventual specific files (or trunks within files) will be loaded in memory for the device to be enabled. In the case of Windows “embedded” printer drivers (those found within the Windows installation or through Windows Update), the feature set available might be limited compared to when you would be installing a specific device driver supplied by the manufacturer itself.

I have only ever suggested you could try updating the Mouse/Trackpad/Keyboard driver. The suggestion to update the driver for the Bluetooth Radio wasn’t mine to begin with. It came out of @ozziefromcharlotte’s book (or at least, he was the one to have made it known here).

Unfortunately, having delved deeper into the link he shared on the subject, I have found mixed response… Like in your situation, many found the suggestion (which was originally made by a member of the Microsoft Community) did not work for them…

Also, updating the driver for the bluetooth radio might have an adverse effect. As you know, some people here have pointed out that devices which don’t use Bluetooth 4(/LE) do work, suggesting that Bluetooth itself is working properly. In fact, I myself have made one comment stating that my AMK worked properly until I tried getting the AMM to work.

Updating the driver for the bluetooth radio itself might render it even more unstable within Windows, causing further Bluetooth related issues.

As it stands, there seems to be no guaranteed solution for the issue. Some have found success in uninstalling the updates which caused the problem to begin with, but this option is available only to those who see them listed as separate entries, as I have pointed out multiple times.

Others have had success updating the driver for the bluetooth radio. However, I’d say that would be highly dependent upon the specific Mac you own...

Microsoft Twitter asked us to report this issue to Microsoft via the "Feedback Hub" in Windows 10.

(Click on Search or Cortana, type in Feedback Hub and then choose it from the list above the search icon.)