"Allow a device to connect" is greyed out, bluetooth

Assigning COM ports (as outlined in the answer above) seems to be a key part of the installation of Bluetooth devices.

You can find out which COM ports are free by running Device Manager and:

1.Right-click on any Serial Device  and chose Properties.

2.In the Properties window, click the Port Settings tab, then Advanced.

3.In the window that opens, you will see alist of the COM ports in use; note the port already assigned to that device will not be marked as assigned.

This list of assigned ports seems to build up over time and not be properly freed up as devices are uninstalled. You can set which ports Windows sees as free by editing the Registry - noting as always that editing the Registry can corrupt it and make your system unbootable.

The key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\COM Name Arbiter

The value is the hex representation of binary bits set as flags:

1 = assigned for the COM port represented by that bit position

0 = free for that port

So if the value is 03 00 00 00...

Then COM ports 1 and 2 (lowest 2 bit positions in the LHS word set on, binary/hex value 3)

are assigned, the remaining ports are free.

To install my Bluetooth phone, I set the values as above as I have USB to serial convertors

set up as COM1 and COM2.

After the install, this value is 7F, indicating that COM1 thru COM7 are now assigned;

both Device Manager (as above) and the Bluetooth device properties confirm this.

I still have the problem that the bluetooth phone settings are often lost on reboot (ie the phone is greyed out)  but setting the COM ports this way ALWAYS works to re-install it.

Any solutions to the problem of losing the settings on startup?

Windows 7 tries to connect to the phone on startup if bluetooth is on;

can this be turned off?

I was trying out a newly installed remote software in my mobile device to test controlling my laptop with it. At first, I thought that it would just be a walk in the park. But I had trouble connecting and found the same problem as with you guys. The "Allow a Device To Connect" option of my bluetooth device was also greyed out. I immediately searched for a definite solution to my problem and found this forum. As I browsed in every page to the last of this forum, I was very hopeful that I would find the answer that I was looking for.

But when as I was about to give up and tried my last ditch effort, it was a success. In my case anyway. What I did was I added another incoming port in the COM Ports tab of my bluetooth's setting because all of my ports are all assigned to other wireless devices. When I tried again to connect my mobile device to my laptop; Voila! It was successful!

I checked the greyed out option again. Still the same BUT I got my solution. I hope this post of mine will be of help to you Guys.

What you've stated makes no sense. The problem has been clearly stated and MS has not contributed in any positive manner. A new thread would add no value and cause the customers to repeat already failed suggestions.

I too have this problem with my Windows 7 machine. I have previously connected bluetooth headsets to the machine, but now the option has been greyed out.

It's kind of ironic & not a little disrespectful that after 2 years of people struggling to get this to work, on a MICROSOFT FORUM, the only MICROSOFT input is to tell us what to do with the forum & not address the problem in the slightest!

Can anyone blame "simple" AsharAbdullah (and surely countless others)?!

Xmnr, if I right-click on the icon, there is no "Run as administrator" option. Bluetooth installed automatically from a Bluetooth usb key (which doesn't show in Explorer).