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My situation is similar to this question for Windows 7, except my OS is Windows XP SP3.

I have recently realized I made the mistake of buying a Bluetooth adapter and installing the Broadcom/Widcomm Bluetooth stack driver software. Now that I know that the software is no good, I want to uninstall it. Then I'll install the Toshiba stack for the Cirago adapter. Right now, when I double-click on the setup.exe file that came with the Cirago driver, nothing happens (it doesn't start setup).

I've attempted to uninstall all Bluetooth driver software in Device Manager, and I don't see any remnants of any Bluetooth drivers there.

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But I do see that the little Bluetooth icon still persists:

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I don't see anything about Bluetooth, Broadcom, or Widcomm in Add/Remove Programs. I don't see any folder names Broadcom or Widcomm in Program Files folder, either. But I do see that Broadcom does show up in the registry with respect to Bluetooth, as shown here.

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I also renamed every file in C:\Windows\inf that starts with "bth" so that it ends with ".old".

What should I do now to completely wipe this persistent Broadcom Bluetooth software off my computer?

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2 Answers 2

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This is a response to an old question but it will still provide some value:

Regarding your situation, the tray icon has nothing to do with a driver and can still be a sloppily left remnant. Download Autoruns.exe from Microsoft to wipe it and any other startup program you dislike

Numerous programs do the same thing, but Autoruns automatically archives any changes so you can undo anything fatal.

Regarding your "UNINSTALLABLE DRIVER"... IT WAS uninstalled, you sent a screen shot of a remnant registry key (CurrentcontrolSet003) which is a Microsoft mechanism of temporarily archiving system changes in case you need to undo such as booting with the Last Known Good settings.

You found that supposed uninstalled driver because you searched the Registry for it and it showed up before it was trashed.

By now in the last year, that driver entry in your Registry screen shot should've disappeared.

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  • I navigated to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
  • searched on "bluetooth" in that registry section
  • found "HP Bluetooth" (broadcom was the OEM here for my HP bt500)
  • located the entry called "uninstall string"
  • double-clicked the entry
  • copied the text in the field "value string" (in my case: MsiExec.exe /X{84814E6B-2581-46EC-926A-823BD1C670F6})
  • pasted it into a command prompt or start/run prompt
  • pressed enter/ok and let the uninstall routine do its thing.

If that fails, there are guides on the internet for manually removing software and devices from the registry. Hunt them down and use their logic in this case (after a registry/system state backup).

Next move: try the newest Broadcom driver (Note: Broadcom won't update the driver for HP's version), or buy a proper Bluetooth device.

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