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I recently updated the Bluetooth software/drivers on my Thinkpad T400. The latest release seems to be more stable, but there was one annoying new “feature” I found. When ever I would connect a Bluetooth device (mouse, headset, my Palm), a shortcut to the device would be placed on my desktop and in a “Bluetooth Devices” folder in my Start menu. Deleting the shortcuts was only a temporary fix, as they would be recreated the next time the device connected. While the shortcuts are convenient for enabling some devices (like my headset), other’s were completely pointless (such as the Bluetooth connection I use to HotSync my Palm phone). The Bluetooth software didn’t have a way to disable this shortcut creation, but fortunately, I found a way to turn it off.

It seems the automatic shortcut creation behavior is new to the latest release of the Lenovo Bluetooth software. However, since the Lenovo software is based on the Broadcom Bluetooth stack (as are virtually all of manufacturers’), I wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature appearing soon with other manufacturers. The basic Broadcom software may allow you to turn the shortcut creation on/off from the settings interface, but the modified version provided by Lenovo doesn’t. If you are in a similar spot, here is how to disable the automatic device shortcut creation.

Automatic way:

1. Save this file to your desktop.
2. Double-click on the downloaded file and respond in the affirmative to any prompts.
3. You should get a message informing you that the file was successfully merged with your registry.

Manual way:

1. Open up the registry editor (regedit.exe).
2. Navigate to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Widcomm\BTConfig\General
3. Look for the two keys “CreateDesktopShortcuts” and “CreateStartMenuShortcuts”.
4. Change the value of those two keys to “0” (zero).

Once you delete the existing shortcuts from your desktop/Start menu, they should not return.