Home » Removing the “My Bluetooth Places” desktop icon

Removing the “My Bluetooth Places” desktop icon

October 23rd, 2005 by Jim

My Bluetooth Places IconA few months ago, I decided to add Bluetooth to my computer so I could use my mobile phone’s Bluetooth headset with games that support in-game chat and other VoIP applications. I purchased a USB Bluetooth adapter, installed the provided software, and was very pleased with it overall. However, I was surprised to find that the installer dropped a “My Bluetooth Places” icon on the desktop that could not be removed.

Is Bluetooth so important that it needs to be accessable 24×7 from a location that I try to keep as clean as possible? I think not…

There are two ways to remove the My Bluetooth Places desktop icon. The first method only affects the current user, while the second method is a system-wide change that affects all users.

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Revision History

2005.10.23 Initial revision.

Disclaimer

I do not offer a warranty or guarantee for anything described in this article. All of my tips are based on personal and professional experience, but you are solely responsible for your own actions. Please backup your data first, and exercise extreme caution when using this information, which could leave your machine unbootable, unstable, or simply unusable!

21 Responses to “Removing the “My Bluetooth Places” desktop icon”

  1. Paul Marshall Says:

    There is a much simpler way:

    Start>Control Panel>Display>Desktop>Customise Desktop>Clean Desktop>Check “My Bluetooth Places>Next>OK>

    This will create an “unused icons” folder on the desktop, simply move this to the recycle bin and voila.

  2. peterr Says:

    Here’s something more challenging than just the icon! I installed BT for similar reasons. It’s got itself in all the ‘Sent to’ menus. No problem in principle apart from it’s got into the File menu in (MS Office 2000) PowerPoint and it’s NOT greyed out when there is no PPT file opened. I strongly suspect this is the reason why I now get a failure message everytime I close PowerPoint, viz. “PowerPoint found an error that it can’t correct. You should save presentations, quit then restart PowerPoint.” Removing BT from the Windows Explorer file that lists the ‘Send to’ sinks does not affect the Office application file menus. MS Word is OK – BT is greyed out when no DOC file opened. I presume this means that there’s something amiss in the registry – ideas?

  3. Jim Says:

    Paul,
    Thanks for the tip. That worked for me, too, but wouldn’t that method fail if the desktop icon was “used” before?

    peterr,
    I really do not know. I was not aware Office tries to make use of Bluetooth, but it sounds useful.

  4. nephalem Says:

    Brilliant use of regedt my good man. Thank you for your fix. When i saw that the icon was a permenant item, i almost freaked out there for a second. Keep up the good work.

  5. Sotiris Says:

    Sometimes when somenone setup a bluetooth (for example trust bluetooth 2) the sound card is not working anymore

    so go to–>

    start/control panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Device Manager/Sound, video and

    gamecontrollers/Bluetooth Audio/properties/Do not use this device (disable)/OK and u have ur sound

    back ๐Ÿ™‚

  6. Happy User! Says:

    Just wanted to say thanks!!! I love searching the web for solutions to my problems (those that I can actually fix – computerwise)…and I wanted to thank you for helping me get rid of that annoying Bluetooth icon!! ๐Ÿ™‚ Hurray!

  7. Tomi Says:

    Thanks! I had the same problem. That icon was really annoying. Another 30 minutes wasted REMOVING A !#ร‚ยค%”)# ICON. sigh..

  8. Eypisod Says:

    Nice to see I’m not the only freak who likes a clean desktop.

    Thanks !

  9. Vikram Says:

    Hey man, Thanks for your post… i too was pondering how to get rid of this annoying icon from my desktop but your option 2 helped me with that… However, i suggest just renaming the key by adding a “_” without the quotes at the beginning and end of the key name… having done that, you have the disabled key right there so that you can rename it back into action should you wish to do that later…
    It worked for me, so thought of sharing with all you good people…
    Cya.. and thank you again for the post…

    Vikram
    India.

  10. susja Says:

    Could somebody help with the same issue on Vista Home Premium. I don’t have such registry key … but still want to get rid of Bluetooth icon on my desktop.
    Thanks,

  11. Bane Says:

    Just search the registry for my bluetooth places and delete the key it finds.

  12. Hans Says:

    That’s right. In Vista Business, you will find the key under the same path, but with another number:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
    explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{32B4C379-4AC0-45F2-939C-D4E7ADA56DC5}

  13. Drake Says:

    thanks for the second method, it works perfectly

  14. Revolution Says:

    Just wanted to say thanks for the solution, worked perfectly! ๐Ÿ™‚

  15. Shauny Bubbles Says:

    The ‘clean desktop’ remedy worked for me. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Thank you, that icon was really starting to annoy me.

  16. Malcolm Kay Says:

    My problem is as follows. I bought a Samsung UGH600 at Christmas and the pics I have taken with the phone are superb. But when I load the disc that was supplied with the phone it loads but noway can I get my comp to accept the phone when I plug in to my USB port. Tried everything to no avail, So then bought a Bluetooth Dongle and loaded the disc with that. But it loads and bugger all happens when I click on the Desktop Icon. I am getting really frustrated can anyone help Mac

  17. zakir Says:

    heres a tricky one guys, couldnt find help anywhere, i need to add the “my bluetooth places”

    zakir.laher@vodacom.co.za

  18. Indie Says:

    You can use TweakUI from the Windows XP Powertoys to do this, it also allows you to add it back to the Desktop.

  19. Oscar Says:

    Thanks so much, it was bugging the crap out of me

  20. daniel balment Says:

    the clean desktop guy is a hero this solved a on going problem

  21. Shamasis B Says:

    Thanks for your info. It helped me remove that icon from my Vista machine. TweakUI for Vista is not there, so the registry method is the only option.

    Since your post helped me as a ready reckoner, I should tell you thanks.