Force bluetooth legacy pairing in Windows 7

Question

I recently acquired a Bluetooth headset (Philips SHB9100) for my smartphone, but also wanted to use it with my Windows 7 PC, so I bought a cheap USB Bluetooth adapter without noticing it was a v2.0 adapter, while the headset is v2.1 + EDR.

The USB Adapter installed correctly on Windows 7, and I am able to discover my headset, but when they try to pair, an ugly Error 0x80004005 appears, never asking me for a PIN.

After some googling, and founding many people had this pairing problem, I read that the major improvement in Bluetooth v2.1 is SSP, which permits pairing without the need to enter a PIN, and also that Windows 7 chooses the "best pairing mechanism" automatically. And so I started to suspect that this is what's happening:

1. Windows discovers a SSP capable device.
2. Windows tries to pair with that device using SSP.
3. The USB Adapter, being v2.0, is unable to permit pairing with the headset via SSP.
4. Windows does it's best showing a 0x80004005 error.

I searched for a v2.1 or superior USB Bluetooth Adapter in my city but couldn't find any (I'm from La Plata, Argentina) and even though I think I'll end buying one, I'd like to make this work, or at least know for sure why the devices aren't pairing.

And so my question is (and I swear I did some more googling before asking here): Can I force Windows to try a legacy pairing with my headset?

Any info on the subject is welcome. Thanks!

Answer 1

I recently faced a similar issue and after a lot of trial and error together with research, I finally fint a compatible driver. I downloaded a few drivers from the intel site and tried it with each one of them. Finally I was able to fix my issues with the driver below.

https://communities.intel.com/thread/103579

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26191

This link can also help with the issue, worth sharing.

https://superuser.com/questions/471767/bluetooth-headset-pairs-and-appears-in-sound-devices-but-shows-as-disconnected