Connecting to PDA through Active-Sync via Bluetooth can cause a serious headache if you’re unfamiliar with the subject. So here’s a complete walkthrough to make it happen. I’m guessing that if you got here then you’ve probably tried few times and failed, so we’ll start by cleaning up all the settings.

PDA

1) In the PDA menu select: Start → Settings, and click the “Connections” tab.

2) Select the Bluetooth icon, and then click the “Bluetooth Manager” link.

3) Select Menu → Paired Devices.

4) Now remove all the listed paired devices by selecting them and clicking remove.

5) You can now soft-reset the PDA, just to clear up your mind.

PC

6) On the PC, open ActiveSync (using its icon in the system tray) and delete all Mobile Devices.

7) Now plug the Bluetooth out of the USB and restart your PC.

8) After the PC is restarted, plug in the Bluetooth device and wait for the driver to kick in. This is a key issue – many times the ActiveSync problem is caused by Bluetooth driver that wasn’t properly installed. If the driver gives you trouble you may try to stick it in another USB port. You may also try to uninstall the driver, plug the bluetooth out, restart the PC, plug in the bluetooth and reinstall its driver. Or maybe use a different Bluetooth device altogether (sometimes they are simply damaged).

9) So after the Bluetooth was properly installed and activated, go to the Control Panel and open the “Bluetooth Devices”.

10) On the “Options” tab make sure “Turn discovery on” and “Allow Bluetooth devices to connect to this computer” are checked.

11) On the “COM Ports” tab, you need to have an Incoming port listed. If not, add one (you may add incoming port even you already have one). Remember the Incoming port number.

12) Right-click the ActiveSync tray icon and select “Connection Settings…”.

13) Select the Incoming port you added in section (11), check all the available options in the  Connection Settings dialog, and press OK.

PDA

14) On the PDA, open the Bluetooth Settings (Start menu → Settings, Connections tab → Bluetooth). Make sure Bluetooth is turned on.

15) Select the “Bluetooth Manager” link, and go to Paired Devices (see sections 2, 3 above).

16) Click on the Add menu, then click the binoculars icon to find your PC.

17) Now you should see your PC listed – select it.

(*) If the PC wasn’t listed, try to Refresh. If it’s still not there, it’s probably either you left Discovery off (see section 10) or bad Bluetooth driver installation (see section 8). Go back to the needed section accordingly.

18) After selecting your PC, choose a Passkey (e.g. “abcd”), and click ok.

PC

19) On your PC you’ll see yellow notification baloon asking you for the passkey, click it and insert the passkey and click Next. 

20) On the following page of the wizard make sure that “Turn discovery off” is not checked, and click Finish.

PDA

21) Back on the PDA click ok on the top-right of the Bluetooth Manager, and then the New menu on the bottom-left to add an ActiveSync connection.

22) Scroll down and select the “ActiveSync via Bluetooth” item.

23) On the two following windows of the wizard select next.

24) On the next window select your PC.

25) And on the final window click the Finish button.

By this time you should be hearing the comforting sound of ActiveSync connecting: pring.