This is a guide written on how to share the same Bluetooth device(s) across Windows and Linux without having to uniquely pair each.

This method uses hivexsh to read the Windows registry directly from Linux without needing to boot into Windows.

Prerequisites

Install hivex:

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S hivex

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install libhivex-bin

# Fedora
sudo dnf install hivex

Steps

  1. Pair your Bluetooth device(s) with Linux first

  2. Reboot into Windows, then re-pair the devices with Windows

  3. Reboot back to Linux

  4. Mount your Windows partition (if not already mounted):

    sudo mount /dev/sdXN /mnt/windows

  5. Find your Bluetooth adapter MAC address and paired devices:

    ls /var/lib/bluetooth/
# Example output: 24:EB:16:23:5B:94

ls /var/lib/bluetooth/24:EB:16:23:5B:94/
# Example output: EC:66:D1:B1:9A:33 (your device)

  6. Use hivexsh to extract the pairing key from the Windows registry:

    hivexsh /mnt/windows/Windows/System32/config/SYSTEM

  7. Navigate to the Bluetooth keys (MAC addresses are lowercase, no colons):

    cd ControlSet001\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Keys
ls
cd 24eb16235b94
lsval

    Example output:

    "ec66d1b19a33"=hex(3):1d,68,ef,88,a8,fa,60,2e,a3,1c,69,2e,61,a4,36,4f

  8. Convert the key to Linux format (remove commas, uppercase):

    1d,68,ef,88,a8,fa,60,2e,a3,1c,69,2e,61,a4,36,4f
→ 1D68EF88A8FA602EA31C692E61A4364F

  9. Update the Linux Bluetooth info file:

    sudo nano /var/lib/bluetooth/24:EB:16:23:5B:94/EC:66:D1:B1:9A:33/info

    Replace the Key= value under [LinkKey] with the converted key.

  10. Restart the Bluetooth service:

    sudo systemctl restart bluetooth

Method 2: Export Keys from Windows

This method requires exporting the registry keys while booted into Windows.

Steps

  1. Pair your Bluetooth device(s) with Linux first

  2. Reboot into Windows, then re-pair the devices with Windows

  3. Run regedit as Administrator

  4. Navigate to:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Keys

    If you do not see any Keys under the tree then you need to open regedit as a system-account user. One way to do this is using the PsExec by downloading it from Microsoft Sysinternals. Once it is downloaded, you will need to run a command-prompt as Administrator and navigate to the location PsExec is unzipped and run PsExec.exe -s -i regedit. The Bluetooth keys should now be visible.

  5. Right-click on Keys in the left-hand pane and select Export. During the dialog change Save as type to Text files and that the Export range is set to Selected branch. Store this somewhere accessible by both Windows and Linux – if a shared drive is unavailable, use a USB drive or cloud-storage.

  6. Reboot to Linux

  7. In a root (e.g. sudo su) terminal navigate to /var/lib/bluetooth then to the MAC address of your host-system (there should only be a single sub-directory under /var/lib/bluetooth)

  8. Find the relevant Bluetooth device(s) by MAC address to share and enter the equally named MAC address directory of the client device.

  9. Open the info file, with root privileges, in the text editor of your choice.

  10. In another tab/window, using either a text viewer or editor, open the previously exported Windows registry text file for the device

  11. From the Windows file, copy the Bluetooth Key. Example:

    00000000   31 c0 08 fa 4f 7b d2 4c - 6f e1 7d ba 32 29 a9 a7  1À.ïO{ÒLoá}ºQ)©§

    From the above copy 31 c0 .... a9 a7

  12. Paste the key from the previous step into the Key= portion of the Linux Bluetooth info file. Make sure to remove all spaces, hyphens, and change all characters to upper-case (all-caps).

  13. Save the info file with the changes to complete device sharing. Repeat for any other Bluetooth devices to share.

  14. Restart the Bluetooth service:

    sudo systemctl restart bluetooth