My fancy Dell with built-in Bluetooth can sync up to my fancy stereo Bluetooth headphones just fine, but I just couldn't get Windows to send the audio from applications to the headphones. This is supposed to be helpful how? The F1 help file for Bluetooth headset was actually pretty good for guiding me through the syncing process and it worked as advertised. But the sound kept coming out of the laptop's speakers.
It turns out that there are a vast number of pleas for help with this problem on forums across the internet. Nobody could get this to work, as far as I could tell. Responses for requests for help on Windows forums range from "We're Microsoft and of course it works" to "I just downloaded stuff until I found something that works. Try what I did." Apparently there are layers of Bluetooth protocols and you have to have just the right one, and Windows doesn't have all the layers built in.
For me, the problem seemed really basic, in that I seem to have found that my bluetooth headset should have appeared in the "audio devices" control panel, or rather the "Playback devices" view, but it never appeared there. Sometimes people reported that they'd gotten that to work. Many folks were using Bluetooth dongles, whereas mine is supposedly built in.
Anyhow, some links:
Here's a 3 page Windows Forum, where a bunch of people had a bunch of problems. Solutions seem to be "update the Broadcom drivers" or "try these Toshiba drivers" or "buy a new dongle where coincidentally the drivers are better.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/transfer-audio-to-bluetooth-headset-in-windows7/b1e6d3e0-61b4-473c-be7f-831d699be5e7?page=1
Here's somebody with my exact problem. Somebody else responded with a wall of links, including the suggestion of enabling hidden devices, etc, and Somebody else had the answer of using the Toshiba drivers.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/problem-getting-sound-to-bluetooth-stereo-headset/c10ceab0-0dee-4ab1-afc1-2eb213cc60eb
Here's another forum that went into great detail about where to find the Toshiba drivers. The OP had apparently tried updating the Broadcom drivers and experienced a lack of success.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/bluetooth-audio-windows-7/e9628b6d-9238-40e6-b658-5397a5ae4a7c
This super-short forum thread NAMES the missing protocol (apparently it's called a2dp):
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/269321-bluetooth-headset-wont-show-up-playback-devices.html
