[StuartV]

It appears to me that Bluetooth tethering between my Pearl and Windows XP Pro w/SP3 does not work.

I say this because:

- I run XP Pro on my laptop. Sadly (for me), I've had to re-install XP from scratch about 4 times over the last few months.

- When I was running XP w/SP2, I had no problem setting up my Pearl to use tethering via Bluetooth. Each time I re-installed XP w/SP2, I used Microsoft Update to get up to date on patches and drivers, installed the BB Desktop Manager, and used the Windows Network Connection Wizard to create new dial-up connections, one for USB tethering, and one for BT tethering. Worked fine, every time. No need to install the Verizon Wireless Manager software or the Dell-provided Bluetooth drivers. This worked with BB OS 4.3 and BB DM 4.5.

- The first time I rebuilt my laptop after XP SP3 came out, I installed XP w/SP2 built into the install, then immediately ran MS Update and installed SP3. Around this same time, I upgraded my Pearl to OS 4.5 and installed BB DM 4.6.

- When I tried to setup tethering with XP SP3 installed, USB tethering setup and worked just fine, but I could never get the BB to show up as a BT modem, in order to be able to configure BT tethering. I tried each version of OS 4.5 on my Pearl, as they were released, and the results never changed.

- I had to reinstall XP (again! ugh!) on my laptop over the last week. This time, I stayed on SP2 and did not allow MS Update to install XP SP3. I did install all patches available for SP2, though.

- This time, configuring BT tethering worked flawlessly, the first time, just like it always had before.

- I suppose it's possible that, now that I have it working, I could go ahead and install XP SP3 and my BT tethering would still work. But I'm afraid to try it!

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8600 with the Dell BT module option installed.

This is just an FYI....