Today I tried to sync my Fujitsu-Siemens notebook computer (Lifebook T4215 tablet convertible with Windows Vista Business) with my new Windows Mobile 6 Standard based mobile phone (HTC S730). As I had figured out already some time ago, bluetooth on Fujitsu-Siemens notebooks does not work well out of the box. As many other vendors, they use the Toshiba Bluetooth stack, which is really well-designed, but does not support the “Bluetooth” connection mechanism used by Windows Mobile Device Center (Windows Vista) or Microsoft ActiveSync (Windows XP). So the problem was that I could not make my mobile device to recognize the ActiveSync service on the notebook computer via bluetooth.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution to the problem (if you know it): in ActiveSync (or the Mobile Device Center) you simply have to change the connection setting from “Bluetooth” to the correct COM port of the Toshiba Bluetooth stack (usually COM7). To find out the correct port, you have to find the COM port with the “server” attached in the system settings (there is a separate Toshiba Bluetooth utility there).

PS: There is a large number of notebook computers that use the Toshiba Bluetooth stack, so this problem and the solution also apply to other vendors and modles (e.g. HP,…).