Bluetooth Headset Won't Show in Playback. EVER.

I've tried about every solution imaginable to this, found in tons of threads. I have HP Bluetooth Module in Device Manager, and my headset shows up as a Bluetooth Peripheral Device there too. I have two Bluetooth instances in the taskbar, I have all the settings on for recognizing BT devices and my headset is in Devices and Printers. The other BT thing in the taskbar is "Bluetooth on MYPC" and only has two rightclick options, "Start the Bluetooth Device" and "Bluetooth Device Not Found." If you try to start BT this way it just whines about "Bluetooth Device not found." Even though it shows up in Device Manager. Yes, I've tried it with the headset on, in pairing mode too. At one point I even had an entry for the HP Bluetooth Module in Devices and Printers.

None of this has made a jot of difference - I've never seen the headset in the Playback Devices, not once. Do you only get that when you spend over $100 or something? This is really irritating. This is an HP HPE h8-1220 desktop with a clean install of Win 7 x64 Home Premium, with every update installed. I've used a couple of driver scanners to improve things - no change. Went to HP's website and installed all kinds of junk - no change. Installed a copy of Bluesoleil, whatever that is - installing that wouldn't let me see the Devices and Printers page any more, so a bit of a change. It also added its own useless icon to the taskbar.

So, unless something posts something really AHA! here in the next day I think I'm just going to return these pieces of crap to Fry's and exchange them for something tried and true, i.e., radio or infrared. Oh, it's a Vivitar headset - I bought something slightly more expensive before, Iliveelectronics or something like that. That didn't help either. I can provide screenshots if that helps. Cripes what an annoying technology.

Hey, thanks for the replies. The Vivitar is a V12609-ESP. That Speccy is a neat bit of software. I can see how you fellows would find it useful. Here's my system profile:Here's my profile.

ICIT2LOL - I've never seen a menu like you picture at Devices and Printers, I only get the options for Add Device or Printer. Maybe my Win7 isn't fancy enough.

I tried another driver pack today, no change. Is there a 2nd party Bluetooth management program out there? Other than Bluesoleil. I could never get any of its buttons to work either, btw. It really seems like something is jammed on this machine. Maybe a USB conflict? When I first fired it up a couple of weeks ago I kept getting black screen of death problems - eventually I figured out that having an external hard drive plugged in was causing them. Strangely enough my previous computer had the same problem, only blue screens instead of black; in the end I figured out I had to have my Logitech mouse dongle plugged into one specific USB port, and the external drive into another. I mean to start up a thread here just documenting all the BSOD causes, as this one I've never seen mentioned elsewhere. And later on I'll try some of those solutions on my new machine too, to see if helps the Bluetooth to work.

OK, I notice when I attempt to uncheck "Turn adapter off" in Bluetooth Settings it refuses to stay unchecked; when I open the dialog again it's once again checked. How does that work?

Tried the solution of setting the BT services from Local System to Local Service, as explained in this post. Didn't help, nor did setting the BT services to Automatic (Delayed Start), which someone else suggested as a cure. Today I'm just going to give up and go over to Fry's and buy a couple of USB BT dongles - they're only $10, after all.

Oh, and I'm using wireless keyboard and mouse; tried unplugging the keyboard dongle but the BT adapter still refuses to turn on.

The Cirago dongle from Fry's works great so never mind. I did a fresh install of Win7 after buying this desktop and didn't get any of the HP disks so it shouldn't have anything proprietary from them, maybe that would have helped, but I downloaded about 10 different BT or wireless program suites from them and it never helped. I sure learned a lot about what might make BT work on Windows machines...thanks again for all the assistance.

I had similar trouble connecting bluetooth headset to my pc to use as an audio device.
I am using a bluetooth dongle CSR v4.0. When I plugged in this dongle windows seemed to find drivers for it and install the device. The headset even showed up when I went to add new device in devices and printers but it would not show up as an audio device. After a little google searching I found a driver software package specific to my CSR dongle. Installed the software and now everything works perfectly. audio device controls on the pc, headphone out, microphone, it all works. Hope this helps someone