Thanks Steve, bendyone,....

I found that installing XP SP2 on my laptop had over-written and corrupted the original Dell Bluetooth software and driver - it seems that this is a common problem as SP2 provides native windows support for the first time. Microsoft give instructions how to remove their Bluetooth stuff - incredible, the mind boggles, why do they behave like this??

Anyway, after much research and messing about I now have Bluetooth connection possible between the phone and the laptop. bendyone, the details that you kindly posted have already been entered automatically by the routine I posted in the OP - actually there are minor differences but I suspect that the Yoigo automatic settings are the correct ones.

Now I need to know how to set up a connection in XP. I have tried using Network Connections as a dial up modem but that only accesses the regular modem. I also have a Bliuetooth My Bluetooth Places connection interface but that is very strange...when I try to set up a new connection it keeps opening up the System Properties interface which makes no sense to me.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Many thanks.