The driver situation with Apple Bluetooth wireless keyboards and Windows 10 is horrible, even with the latest BootCamp drivers. Fortunately, a workaround is available, if you're patient.
- Turn on the keyboard.
- Press and hold
Command + w
until the keyboard light begins blinking, indicating the keyboard is ready to pair. - Use Windows Bluetooth settings to pair the keyboard, entering the same code (e.g.
123456 Enter
) on both internal and external keyboards.
Pairing the keyboard is very trial and error. 9/10 times, Windows will complain that the keyboard is not available for pairing. Just keep trying.
Finally, once the keyboard does pair, Windows will complain with a status Driver error
.
- Launch
Device Manager
, such as from the Start menu. - Identify the offending device, marked by a yellow warning triangle.
- Remove the device and uninstall the driver.
- Reboot.
Unpair and re-pair the keyboard, will probably take 20 more attempts.
Once the keyboard has paired, after uninstalling the keyboard driver, you can check whether the keyboard is finally fully connected, by pressing the Command (Start) button, etc.
Hi everyone -- Just wanted to confirm that these instructions actually do work. Inexplicably. As the OP says, you have to keep going through the same process multiple times, and Windows keeps refusing to see the keyboard. Then, suddenly, it will start to behave. In my instance, it did not throw any driver errors once connected. This might be because I recently ran a batch of Windows system updates.
Two things for people to know. These are mentioned in the instructions, but they bear repeating. #1. You need to type the PIN on both keyboards. First, enter a PIN into the wired keyboard. Then, enter the PIn into your wireless keyboard. Be prepared for it not to connect, but don't give up. #2. The PIN can be anything you want. At first, I was trying 12345678, but then I shortened it to a six digit number. Can't believe it actually worked! Thank you!