Bluetooth Not Working After a Windows Update: The Fix

Before anything else, open Device Manager and check one thing: is a Bluetooth adapter still listed? If it is, your hardware is fine and this is a software problem with a short fix.

Then press Windows+R, run services.msc, find Bluetooth Support Service, and start it.

Here is the thing that makes this look so much worse than it is. When that service is not running, Windows does not show you a Bluetooth switch that would not work. It removes the entire Bluetooth section from Settings. No toggle, no device list, nothing — as though the hardware had been physically removed from the machine.

So "Bluetooth has disappeared" almost never means the chip died. It means a background service did not start, and Windows chose to hide the whole feature rather than explain that.

Which is why the two screens disagreeing is your diagnosis: Device Manager still lists the adapter, Settings shows no Bluetooth at all. That combination has one meaning, and it is the good one.

And if you have already restarted and it changed nothing — there is a reason for that too, and it is not what you would expect.

The Laptop That Had Forgotten It Owned a Radio

A customer came into Jake's shop wanting a quote for a new laptop. Hers had updated overnight, and in the morning Bluetooth was simply gone — not switched off, not failing to connect, but absent. No Bluetooth in Settings. No toggle in the quick panel. Her headphones no longer existed as far as the machine was concerned.

She had reasonably concluded the Bluetooth chip had died, and since it was a four-year-old laptop, that a replacement was the sensible move.

Jake nearly agreed with her. A missing section in Settings is a convincing impression of dead hardware, and he had seen genuine Bluetooth card failures before.

What stopped him was opening Device Manager out of habit — and there it was. Intel Wireless Bluetooth, listed, no warning triangle, no error. The machine could see its own radio perfectly well.

Two screens, looking at the same hardware, disagreeing completely.

Ethan's reaction when Jake called: "That's not a conflict, that's the answer. Device Manager reports what's physically attached. Settings only draws the section if the service behind it is alive. If one can see it and the other can't, you've been told exactly where the problem is — it just wasn't phrased as a sentence."

The service was stopped. Starting it brought the entire section back in about four seconds, and her headphones reconnected on their own.

Except she had also told Jake something that should not have been possible: she had turned the laptop off and on again twice, and it had made no difference at all. On a stopped service, that ought to have fixed it by itself.

The reason it did not is the next section, and it applies to far more than Bluetooth.

Two Screens, and What Their Disagreement Means

Spend thirty seconds on this before touching anything, because it decides which half of the page you need.

Open Device Manager — right-click Start, or press Windows+X. Look for a Bluetooth category. Then open Settings and look for a Bluetooth section. Now compare:

Device Manager	Settings	What it means
Adapter listed, clean	No Bluetooth section at all	The service is stopped. Hardware fine. Four-second fix.
Adapter listed with a warning triangle	Section present but broken	Driver problem. The update replaced it. Go here.
Adapter listed	Toggle present but stuck off	Radio state or power management. Go here.
Nothing under Bluetooth	Nothing	Driver removed entirely, or hardware. Check hidden devices first.

For that last row, in Device Manager open the View menu and turn on Show hidden devices. An adapter that appears grayed once you do is still installed and merely not started — which puts you back on row one, with a much better afternoon ahead of you.

Row one is where most people reading this actually are. So that is where we start.

Restarting and Shutting Down Are Not the Same Thing

This is the part that explains Jake's customer, and it is worth knowing far beyond Bluetooth.

Windows has a feature called Fast Startup, switched on by default. When you choose Shut down, Windows does not fully shut down. It closes your programs, then saves the system state to disk and reloads it when you power the machine back on. That is why modern laptops boot in seconds.

The consequence nobody mentions: a shutdown followed by a power-on preserves the problem. A stopped service stays stopped. A driver that loaded badly loads badly again, from the saved copy. You have not restarted anything — you have paused and resumed.

Restart, by contrast, performs a genuine full shutdown and a clean boot. Services start fresh. Drivers initialize from scratch.

So "I turned it off and on again and it did not help" is one of the most misleading sentences in computing, and anyone who has said it was not being careless — they did exactly what everyone is told to do, and Windows quietly did something else.

Whenever you are told to restart during troubleshooting, use Start → Power → Restart specifically. If you would rather have a shutdown mean a shutdown permanently, our guide on turning Fast Startup on or off covers the trade — you lose a few seconds of boot time and gain a machine that behaves the way you expect.

Now, with a real restart available to you, the service fix will actually hold.

Starting the Service That Draws the Section

The service is called Bluetooth Support Service, its internal name is bthserv, and it handles discovery and pairing. The radio can be powered and present while this is stopped, which is the whole reason the hardware looks dead.

1. Press Windows+R, type services.msc, press Enter.
2. Scroll to Bluetooth Support Service. The list is alphabetical by display name.
3. Right-click it, choose Properties.
4. Set Startup type to Automatic, then click Start, then OK.
5. If it was already running, click Stop and then Start anyway. A stack that loaded in a bad state after an update needs cycling, not just checking.
6. Open Settings. The Bluetooth section should be back.

If the service refuses to start, do not skip past the message — the exact wording tells you which of the remaining sections is yours:

What it says	What it means	Where to go
Started successfully, Bluetooth still missing	The service is fine; the driver underneath it is not	The driver section
"The dependency service failed to start"	Something the service relies on is missing, almost always the driver	The driver section
Error 1053, did not respond in time	It is trying to start and stalling, often security software inspecting it	Restart properly first, then retry
Access is denied	You are not running as an administrator	Sign in to an admin account and try again
The service is not in the list at all	The Bluetooth stack is not installed, not merely stopped	Install the manufacturer's driver

Three of those five rows point at the same place, which is worth noticing: when the service will not cooperate, the driver is usually the real subject and the service is just the first thing to complain.

While you are in services.msc, it costs nothing to check that Bluetooth Audio Gateway Service and Bluetooth User Support Service are not disabled either. Tune-up scripts that switch off "unnecessary" services tend to take all three together, and a machine that lost Bluetooth after a cleanup rather than an update is usually missing more than one.

When the Update Swapped Your Driver

If the service is running and Bluetooth is still broken, the update almost certainly replaced your driver.

Windows Update carries generic drivers from the chipset maker — Intel, Realtek, Qualcomm, MediaTek. Your laptop manufacturer took that same driver and adjusted it for your exact adapter, antenna layout and power behavior. The generic one is technically newer and genuinely worse on your machine.

Nothing is damaged. The wrong driver is simply installed, and the fix is to put the right one back:

1. Try the rollback first. Device Manager → the adapter → Properties → Driver tab → Roll Back Driver. Seconds, and reversible.
2. If that button is gray, Windows no longer holds the previous driver. Not a fault — that route is just closed.
3. Go to your laptop or motherboard maker's support page, enter your exact model, and download their Bluetooth driver. Not the chipset vendor's, and not a driver-download aggregator.
4. Uninstall the current driver in Device Manager, checking the box to remove the driver software if it appears.
5. Install the manufacturer's driver, then Restart properly.

Then stop Windows putting the generic one back, which it will, often within hours. That has its own ordering trap and its own page: stopping Windows reinstalling a driver after you roll it back. The short version is that you must uninstall the driver first and hide the update immediately afterwards, because the tool can only hide something currently being offered.

And please do not reach for a driver updater program. They install more generic drivers than the ones you already have, which is the precise problem you are trying to undo.

The Intermittent Version: Power Management

A different shape of the same complaint: Bluetooth works after a restart, then vanishes once the laptop has slept. That is not the service and not the driver — it is Windows switching the adapter off to save power and failing to switch it back on.

In Device Manager, open the adapter's Properties, go to the Power Management tab, and clear Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. Click OK and restart.

The cost is a small amount of battery life. The benefit is a radio that is present when you open the lid, and on most machines the difference in runtime is not noticeable.

Jake asked Ethan why Windows switches off a radio that draws almost nothing. Ethan's answer is worth keeping in mind whenever a setting seems pointlessly aggressive: "Because that checkbox was written for a laptop from 2009 with four hours of battery, and nobody has revisited the default since. Half the settings you'll ever fight in Windows are answers to problems that stopped existing a decade ago."

Two nearby things worth ruling out while you are here, both of which take seconds. Turn airplane mode on, wait, and turn it off — updates and laptop hotkeys sometimes leave the radio state inconsistent, so airplane mode reads as off while the radio stays disabled. And check any physical wireless switch or Fn key combination on the keyboard, which on many laptops governs Bluetooth and wifi together.

If Bluetooth is present and working but a specific device will not behave, that is a different lane entirely — pairing codes and passkeys covers devices that will not pair, and audio that will not play over Bluetooth covers headsets that connect and stay silent.

Undoing the Update Itself

This is the heavier option and it is worth being deliberate about, because you are giving back security fixes to regain a radio.

Reach for it only when the service is running, the manufacturer's driver is installed, power management is off, and Bluetooth is still broken — that combination suggests the update changed something beyond the driver.

The important detail is one of sequence, and it catches nearly everyone: pause updates before you uninstall, not after. Windows compares what your machine has against what it should have and refills the gap, often within hours, so an uninstall without a pause is undone by lunchtime. Our guide on uninstalling a Windows update covers that order, and the reason the command in most other guides no longer works on monthly updates.

Treat the pause as a deadline rather than a solution. A machine that has stopped updating is accumulating risk quietly, and the usual outcome is that the following month's update fixes the driver properly and you can let everything through again.

Ruling Out the Hardware for About Ten Dollars

If Device Manager shows nothing under Bluetooth even with hidden devices displayed, and none of the above changes that, it is finally reasonable to suspect the adapter.

The cheap test is a USB Bluetooth dongle. Plug it in, let Windows install it, and try again. If Bluetooth works through the dongle, the built-in radio or its connection has genuinely failed. If the dongle fails too, the fault is still in Windows and hardware was never the issue.

Worth knowing before you quote anyone for a repair: on most laptops, Bluetooth and wifi are the same card. So a failed Bluetooth radio usually means wifi is unreliable too, and if wifi is perfectly healthy, a hardware failure becomes much less likely. That single observation has saved Jake several unnecessary parts orders.

And if it truly is the card, replacing an M.2 wireless card in most laptops is a modest job and a modest part — considerably less than the new laptop Jake's customer came in to buy.

What This Page Used to Be

This post went up in April 2017, about Bluetooth breaking on one specific Windows 10 release, the Creators Update. That was a real and widespread problem at the time, and the page helped people who were on that build in that month.

The Creators Update is long gone. The failure is not. It arrives with a different update every few months, for the same reasons, and the people reading this now are not on a 2017 build — they are somebody whose headphones stopped existing on Tuesday.

So the page has been re-aimed at the problem behind the original rather than the version it happened on. The web address has not changed, so old links still work.

What the 2017 version never did was explain the diagnosis. It listed fixes to try in order, which is useful, but a reader who worked through them had no way to know which one was theirs, or when to stop. The two-screens check at the top does that in thirty seconds, and it is the single most useful thing on this page.

Your Questions, Answered Straight

Why did Bluetooth disappear from Settings after a Windows update?

Almost always because the Bluetooth Support Service is not running. Windows removes the entire Bluetooth section from Settings when that service is stopped, rather than showing a control that would do nothing. The radio is still physically there. Open services.msc, start Bluetooth Support Service, and the section comes back.

How do I know whether my Bluetooth hardware actually failed?

Compare two screens. If Device Manager lists a Bluetooth adapter but Settings shows no Bluetooth section at all, the hardware is fine and the problem is software. If Device Manager also shows nothing, and no hidden devices appear when you enable Show hidden devices, then you are looking at a driver or a hardware issue instead.

I restarted and it did not help. What now?

Check whether you restarted or shut down, because on Windows they are not the same thing. Fast Startup means a shutdown saves the system state and reloads it at power-on, so a stopped service or a half-loaded driver survives. Restart performs a genuine full shutdown. Choose Restart from the Start menu specifically.

How do I start the Bluetooth Support Service?

Press Windows+R, type services.msc and press Enter. Find Bluetooth Support Service in the list, right-click it and choose Properties. Set Startup type to Automatic, click Start, then OK. If it is already running, stop it and start it again, which clears a stack that loaded in a bad state after an update.

Why does a Windows update break Bluetooth in the first place?

Usually because the update replaced your manufacturer's driver with a generic one from the chipset maker. The generic driver is newer and works on most hardware, but it does not carry the specific tuning your laptop maker added for your exact adapter. Nothing is damaged; the wrong driver is simply installed.

Should I install the Bluetooth driver from my laptop manufacturer?

Yes, and it is usually the fix that lasts. Go to your laptop or motherboard maker's support page, find your exact model, and download their Bluetooth driver rather than the chipset vendor's generic one. Install it, restart properly, and then stop Windows Update putting the generic one back.

How do I stop Windows reinstalling the driver that broke it?

Uninstall the driver first, then hide that update with Microsoft's Show or hide updates troubleshooter before Windows checks again. The order matters, because the tool can only hide an update that is currently being offered. Doing it the other way round means Windows reinstalls the driver within hours.

Can power management switch the Bluetooth adapter off?

Yes, and it causes the intermittent version of this problem where Bluetooth works until the machine sleeps. In Device Manager, open the adapter's Properties, go to the Power Management tab, and clear the option allowing Windows to turn the device off to save power. It costs a small amount of battery and removes a frustrating class of failure.

What is the Bluetooth Support Service and what does it do?

It is the Windows service, named bthserv, that handles discovery and association for Bluetooth devices. The radio hardware can be present and powered while this service is stopped, which is exactly why the hardware looks dead when it is not. Without it, Windows has no way to find or pair anything.

Should I roll back the driver or uninstall the update?

Roll back the driver first, because it is narrower and reversible in seconds. Device Manager, the adapter, Properties, Driver tab, Roll Back Driver. Uninstalling the whole Windows update is the heavier option and worth keeping for when the rollback button is unavailable or the rollback does not help.

Why is the Roll Back Driver button grayed out?

Because Windows no longer holds a previous driver to return to. It keeps only one, and it discards that copy during disk cleanup or after certain updates. A grayed button is not a fault on your machine — it means that route is closed and you should install the manufacturer's driver deliberately instead.

Does airplane mode affect this?

It can, and it is worth ruling out in ten seconds before anything else. Some updates and some laptop hotkeys leave the radio state inconsistent, so airplane mode reads as off while the Bluetooth radio stays disabled. Turn airplane mode on, wait a moment, turn it off again, and see whether Bluetooth returns.

Will the Windows Bluetooth troubleshooter fix it?

Sometimes, and it costs two minutes so it is worth running early. It is good at stopped services, disabled radios and stale device records. It will not install a manufacturer driver or undo an update, so if the cause is a replaced driver it will report finding nothing and you should move on rather than run it repeatedly.

How can I test whether the adapter itself has failed?

Borrow or buy an inexpensive USB Bluetooth dongle and plug it in. If Bluetooth works through the dongle, the built-in radio or its connection has genuinely failed, and on a laptop that is usually the same card as your wifi. If the dongle also fails, the problem is in Windows rather than in hardware.

Do I need to reinstall Windows to fix this?

No. Bluetooth problems after an update are configuration or driver problems, and every step on this page keeps your files and programs. If nothing here works, an in-place upgrade using the Media Creation Tool repairs the system layer while keeping everything, and it is still far short of a reinstall.

Does this apply to Windows 11 as well as Windows 10?

Yes. The service name, the Device Manager steps, the power management setting and the driver behavior are identical on both. Windows 11 moved the Bluetooth section in Settings and shows quick toggles differently, but nothing in the diagnosis or the repair changes.

Worth Reading Next

Revision note. Originally published April 26, 2017, about Bluetooth breaking on the Windows 10 Creators Update. Rewritten and re-aimed August 22, 2026 for Windows 11 and Windows 10, at the same web address. That release is long retired but the failure is not — it returns with a different update every few months, for the same reasons. What is new: the two-screen check that identifies which cause is yours in thirty seconds, an explanation of why a shutdown does not restart anything while Fast Startup is on, the generic-driver replacement and how to stop it recurring, and the wifi-card observation that saves people from buying hardware they do not need. If your machine behaves differently from anything here, please write in and tell us what Device Manager showed — that one detail usually explains the rest. And if you were about to replace a laptop over this: the radio is very probably fine, and this is one of the least serious things that can go wrong after an update.