enrii.blog

I was unable to open or explore My Bluetooth Places for a while. Every time when I try to do so, I get the following error:

The path '::{6af09ec9-b429-11d4-a1fb-0090960218cb}' does not exist or is not a directory.

A forum thread at Tech Support Guy was very helpful. If you are facing the same problem, all you have to do is to add the following key to registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{6af09ec9-b429-11d4-a1fb-0090960218cb}

Set the value as 'My Bluetooth Places', without the quotes. I am able to explore my bluetooth devices again.

I believe the key could have been removed by certain cleanup programs which are supposed to be doing good to your system but this is certainly a false negative.

Few months ago, I bought my Sony Ericsson z520i. Since it's not too expensive to get a bluetooth dongle, I bought myself a MSI Btoes bluetooth dongle, to try on some synchronizing from my phone to my PC.

Everything was OK until one day, the few-month-old dongle stopped working and I sent it to MSI for warranty. After a few weeks, when I got it back, I notice that the dongle is not the same one I sent to them. They said it is normal for them to replace with a different one. I accept it although the replacement unit looks dirty and fully scratched.

I believe the new one should be working and it stayed at my desk for weeks until few days ago, I formatted my PC and I plan to reinstall the bluetooth software.

I tried to install from CD and download the latest drivers from MSI website but with no sucess. I keep getting responses such as "Bluetooth devices not found" or probably "Bluetooth license check fail".

After spending a lot of time looking at this, I found that this is an issue with WIDCOMM drivers (MSI is using WIDCOMM's driver) that lots of people are facing. I think I don't have the correct license file for the replacement unit I've gotten. And, the link that MSI gave me to obtain license file is not working anymore!

I thought I'll have to throw the stupid dongle away until I found a forum thread that solves the problem. Here's how I solve it:

1. Download WIDCOMM driver with license patcher. (Hopefully this link lasts)
2. Run the license patcher and save the license file to replace the license.dat in the installation folder.
3. Install the driver like how you would normally install a driver.
4. Press 'Cancel' the skip device detection during the installation process, if the installer failed to detect it.

My bluetooth is working after that. For details, please refer to GSM-FORUM. Some of the users had other problems such as windows driver issues. I'm sure you can solve your problem if you read the whole thread.

Although it might illegal to use license patcher, but I guess that's the only option that I have. Hope it works for you too.