A new computer has found its way into my home. I want to say that there were reasons other than playing Warcraft that caused this to happen... but that's basically it. Playing Warcraft on my work laptop was wrong for a number of reasons. Among them were:

1) It has a 12" screen w/ 1024x760 maximum resolution
2) It has passive cooling, aka Leg Heat Sink Technology™
3) It has no hardware graphics acceleration
4) It's lab property and I probably shouldn't be playing games on it.

Note that a side effect of #3 is that games like Warcraft cause the processor to go to 100% for the duration of play. This, combined with #2 and the fact that one (read: I) could (read: do) play Warcraft for countless hours in one sitting, leads to severe burns on the thighs. Insulating my thighs with something like a lapdesk or, heaven forbid, a table, leads to the laptop overheating and resetting within an hour. The only solution was to play on the kitchen counter, which is made of granite and turns out to be a pretty good heat sink. However, the counter height ruled out any comfortable seating meaning I had to play while sitting on a stool. Not good.

Anyway I picked up one of Dell's cheapest offerings, beefed up the RAM, graphics card, and monitor and now I have a desktop in my home again for the first time in about 4 years.

Since Warcraft was one of the drivers for the purchase of this computer, getting something that would work well with Ventrillo was also a concern. I already own a Bluetooth headset that I use with my PS3, so I got an optional package on the dell that bundles a Bluetooth receiver in the box and throws in a BT keyboard and mouse.

Unfortunately this machine was only offered with Vista and, as far as I can tell, Vista can't handle Bluetooth for shit. I can get audio to come out of one model BT headset, but not another. I can use the mic on the headset, but not if the headphones are enabled. If I have audio streaming to the headset, then the mouse doesn't work.

All I want is for the Ventrillo voice audio to come out of the headphones and the regular sound to come out of the speakers, and for the mic to work (in concert with the mouse and keyboard). Is that so hard? I thought Bluetooth was a more mature technology than this; it certainly seems to work sans problems with my PS3. Is it Vista's fault, then? Because this implementation is worthless. I'm going to call Dell tonight and see if there is some magic bullet that I can't figure out.