How to reconnect to a already paired bluetooth A2DP headset?

I think I've found out how you reconnect an A2DP headset.

1. Pair your device, confirm that it is working yadda yadda.
2. Disconnect your device, connect to something else and confirm that you are not automatically reconnecting to windows.
3. Right click on the speaker icon in the lower right corner of the screen.
4. Select "Playback Devices"
5. You should see your paired devices in here.
6. Right click the paired device and you will see "Test, connect, disable, set as default...etc etc etc.
7. Obviously you'll be wanting to click "Connect" at this point.

Hope that helps. I worked for me. I agree though that it is counter intuitive. Having the connect / reconnect option in the bluetooth device section as well seems sensible.

EDIT There's still no "disconnect" option though. "Connect" just greys out.

I have the exact same problem using Nokia BH-504. Seaching the web for this problem brings up dozens of people having this problem without any solutions. prasanhetti described it perfectly: After pairing everything works fine, if you switch of your BT device Windows will not recognize it is switched off. Then if you switch it back on again the BT Audio Renderer will not function properly anymore until you re-pair your BT device. What I observed though is that the Mono BT Audio device (Bluetooth Hands-Free Audio) will work even after disconnection/reconnecting the BT headset.

This is most likely a bug in the Windows 7 Bluetooth stack, since it works fine with other Operating Systems (including Linux and Windows Mobile 6.5).

@prasanhetti: Actually there is an option to connect a BT device (rightclick disconnected BT audio device in audio settings or rightklick BT device in BT devices list). However, it seems like that Windows will not recognize loosing connections to BT devices and thus these options are grayed out to me, because Windows believes it is still connected to the devices. You can observe this by righklicking your actually disconnected BT device, selecting Properties, switch to the Bluetooth tab and look for the "Last connected" field. It shows "Currently connected" although the device is switched off. I believe this might be the core of the problem.

@MS Support: Please consider escalating this to QA or wherever you post your bugs to. Plenty of people are reporting this problem in various forums throughout the web and there are no working solutions.

Same problem, purchased IQUA BHS702 A2DP Stereo BT-Headset that claims to be able to be paired with 8 devices simultaneously. But every time when in need to use it in Windows 7 with a brand new A2DP BT USB dongle, you have to remove the headset at all from the list of paired devices and then to pair it like a new device. Feels like no progress about that in this operating system. Same thing btw on Windows Mobile 6.5 on my HTC Diamond 2 aka Topaz T5353, whether i heard that Samsung, Nokia , Linux and Google OSs are take care of this issue pretty well.

PS: all the latest updates, drivers, patches are installed from scratch, so please, MicroSoft, please invent a support for it.

Hi Thank you very much for your answer.

My bluetooth headset works fine with Windows 7. The drivers are installed by default when I pair it with windows. Everything works. I can even control WMP using headset as a remote. I haven't  use the headset with earlier version of Windows since I restarted using windows with Windows 7 after a long time. Also I don't have access to other versions of windows also at  the moment.

I think my problem is not with the drivers. The problem is in Windows 7 there's no way of reconnecting to an already paired bluetooth headset. I tried the same steps as described in previous post with another headset (Jabra BT3030) the results are the same. In Windows 7 you cannot reconnect to an already paired bluetooth headset. There're no options like connect or disconnect in Windows 7 bluetooth devices.

I've updated my Windows 7 to the latest using Windows update. Bluetooth A2DP works outofthebox. Only problem is connecting and disconnecting from a bluetooth headset.

For curiosity I checked whether Windows 7 provides connect and disconnectfunctions for other bluetooth devices (other than headset). I paired two mobile phones with Windows 7. (Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic and Nokia 5530 Xpressmusic). To my amazement you cannot connect or disconnect either once paired. Only way of disconnecting from Windows 7 connecting and disconnecting is possible from mobile phone's side. Not from Windows 7. The mobile phones are shown as bluetooth devices in Windows bluetooth devices folder. But you cannot connect or disconnect from them. (you can remove them of course)

So what I figured out is the problem is not only with A2DP headsets. It**'s common to Windows 7 bluetooth stack/functionality**.

What I need as a solution is the ability to connect or disconnect from already paired bluetooth devicesfrom Windows 7 itself. (not from device's end). I hope it's not a difficult task for the Windows bluetooth stack implementation.

Please don't suggest me to install Toshiba or other bluetooth stacks. I want to stick into the default windows bluetooth stack. It's simple it works. Except above problem.