I’ve seen a lot of instructions on how to tether a laptop to a Windows Mobile device. I’m not going to repeat the detailed instructions that are available on the net but I would like to provide a simplified version with a couple of key troubleshooting steps that I ran into. (There’s a more complete write up with screenshots at Modern Nomads)
- First you pair your two devices. In my case I’m running WM6 on an HTC Hermes 8525 from AT&T/Cingular. I’m connecting from a WinXP SP2 laptop with an Anycom 250 Bluetooth USB Dongle.
- Once the devices are paired, you want to be sure that you only are offering ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) in ONE direction, or you’ll get an error:
- The Network Access connection failed: Can’t connect when both sides are configured as NAP
- To resolve this: on the PC under the Bluetooth configuration window choose the Local Services tab. There’s a “Nework Access” option. The properties for this tab offer several options – choose: Do Not Allow Network connections to this Computer.
- With that option turned off, now it’s pretty simple. Run “Internet Sharing” on the Bluetooth phone – this can usually be found in the /Windows folder called something like “IntShrUI” if the phone company is hiding it from you.
- Select “Bluetooth PAN” and whatever network you use to connect to the Internet on your phone (MEdiaNet or ISP for AT&T). Click connect on the phone.
- Then go to your PC – right click your phone via “My Bluetooth Places” – Choose “Connect Network Access Point”
- There is no step 6 (Though as a side note, setting up Network access seems to foul up my ActiveSync (v.4.5) connection via Bluetooth. To resolve that I just reinstall ActiveSync after the above instructions and then everyone seems happy.)
Hopefully that will help others get on-line. The key for me was Step 2.1 – without that I kept getting an error and no one on the Internet seems to mention this detail. Maybe it’s just me..
You are right! You are the only one I have seen to post information like this (so far), and for that I congratulate you. However, I can’t seem to find “IntShrUI” in /Windows folder in my computer. I am using Widcom Bluetooth Dongle. Do you have any idea how I can resolve the same problem with this software? Your reply will be mostly appreciated. Thanks a lot!
PerryBc: IntShrUI is located on the Windows mobile device, at least if you’re lucky (some phone companies have stripped out completely) But you can probably find someone running the same version of Windows Mobile as you and get a copy from them.
Of particular note is http://www.xda-developers.com – the people who hang out there are pretty great.
You can also re-flash your device with a wholly new operating system – I did that recently and it worked fine, but if you’re not careful it’s possible to “brick” (aka ruin) the phone.
Have fun!
Science
Thanks for your response. However, do you know how to resolve this same problem with a Sony Ericsson P1i which is running in Symbian UIQ OS? I’m really getting frustrated, even considering replacing the phone.
PerryBC
PerryBC: Which problem are you having? Since you’re not running on a Windows mobile phone, things are going to be somewhat different – I don’t know much about Symbian except that a lot of people really like it.
I can say that if you’re getting an error on your Widcom stack on your Windows XP PC, you’re probably running into a similar problem which is that the PC has configured as a host for internet sharing as well as a client.
You probably want the PC to be a client only, so you have to figure out how to turn off Internet Sharing/Hosting on the PC. I describe in the original post how to do that – and I think I’m also using the Widcom stack so the UI should be similar or the same for you. Does this help?
Great info.. No other places on the web had the info from line 2.1. It was making me crazy. That one little setting was stopping the entire show.. Thanks for the help..
Hello, my bluetooth connects to the pc and seems to provide internet, however, i get this message when opening a browser:
HTTP ERROR: $CODE$
$MESSAGE$
RequestURI=/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
Brilliant thanks – you’ve saved me a few more grey hairs – thanks!!!!
[...] little guys, pairing my phone with my computer, following the instructions I found elsewhere, and troubleshooting a bit — shazam! — all seems to be working wonderfully. In fact, I was able to access [...]
Are there any further details on how a connection have to look like when ICS is working? Something like ipconfig /all.
I did the things above and I have the feeling its gets me a step further, but I still cannot manage to use ICS via bluetooth. This is realy bothering me, because it works great via USB and the bluetooth connection works fine too. Just not the ICS AND bluetooth. :/
is there any other way to reverse it. Like any other way to configure the pc as host and phone as a client. So that i can access the internet on my phone.
Janand – Not with ICS, as far as I know. But if you have a hardline internet connection on your computer and a wireless card too, you could bridge the two connections and set up the wireless card as an ad hoc AP. Then connect your phone (assuming it has wifi) to the AP.
Or for many Windows Mobile phones you can simply plug a USB cable into the computer and phone and ActiveSync will provide internet access automatically, but of course this is a hardwired connection which is not very satisfying..