It's a pitty it doesn't work in 2003. I had to reinstall 2000 only to get BT to work so I could transfer some programs to my phone with it.

Dont judge Bluetooth on the experience with 1 device. As with any other technology your milage will vary with the quality and design of the implementation you are using.

I have used built-in Bluetooth both on a Apple Powerbook G4 and IBM T40 and both work very well. I'm actually using the Microsoft Bluetooth Explorer mouse right now.

The limited Bluetooth support in WinXP is surprising. I actually cannot connect to my mobile with the default software included with SP1 - although the IBM Bluetooth stack has no problems. I'd also like to point out that the Apple Bluetooth software is *much* better than what comes with Windows XP SP1.

I understand that there will be better support for Bluetooth in SP2 - but I havent heard any official word in the pre-SP2 hype.

I'd like to point out that Bluetooth was designed to be a low-powered PAN (Personal Area Network) - f.ex. connecting devices that you are holding to devices you are sitting in front of. It's not a 802.11b wannabe.

I think that it has a really useful design-philsophy and that the Bluetooth technology delivers exactly what it promises.

If Bluetooth actually fits into what you are trying to do - then I urge you not to give up yet. It really is a very interesting and fun technology - and it does work.

I agree with Snorrk,
Bluetooth is designed for pan, not for wan. Anyway, I do use bluetooth in my studio (hence the small distance between the 4 rooms :) to communicate between my pda or my laptop and the desktop that shares the internet connection. I simply use two Acer Bt-500 dongle, (fairly cheap) and my pda has built-in bluetooth. Sure, it was not easy to configure everything out of the box, but now, my tiny wireless network works really fine and i can read my mails in my bed or browse the web on my terrace. I do have around 8 meters around the desktop and something like 3-4 meters when a wall is between two machines... So don't give up ! May i suggest you to install a widcomm stack ? They are fare more stable than most of the available stack. That should help too ! Hold on :)

Hmm. I have two Zeevo BT500 devices, and I cannot get connectivity if someone closes the door, let alone through a wall.
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I must admit, I did want a cheap WAN alternative, even if it was just to sit with my laptop on my knee just 8 feet from my server. But my experience so far was a flaky signal ~ ping blah -t was a hit and miss affair and although when I was connected I was getting about 115kbs connection (very cool) it lost the signal too much.
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I shall try the widcomm stack - I'm incredibly thick when it comes to giving up - I just don't until its incredibly obvious that I should have ages ago :)

^_^,Pretty Good!

^_^,Pretty Good!