Apr 20, 2016 DL original W7 x64 friver from M$ site (on 8.1, 10 skip this step - driver already embedded), start install, when Win say that @cant find driver, go to device manager, click on Unknown device, Update drivers. search on this PC choose from list already installed, Common Controller (Microsoft) for Windows classes, Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver. Normally Xbox 360 controller may not operate on Windows 10 because of the lousy driver, and if that’s the reason the very best manner is to uninstall that driver and enable a window to install it again. To use the wired Xbox 360 controller on Windows, we have to connect the controller to the USB port and install the drivers. But if we want to use the wireless Xbox 360 controller, we need the device Xbox 360 wireless gaming receiver. First, we install the device on Windows, and then we connect the wireless controller to the receiver. To use the wired Xbox 360 controller on Windows, we have to connect the controller to the USB port and install the drivers. But if we want to use the wireless Xbox 360 controller, we need the device Xbox 360 wireless gaming receiver. First, we install the device on Windows, and then we connect the wireless controller to the receiver.
After playing around with Nintendo 64 emulators with the intention of taking screenshots for some N64 games that I plan to review one of these days, I determined that it was finally time to break down and get a new gamepad for my PC. None of my other pads had anything akin to analog sticks – I mostly bought them with playing much older games in mind. I’m a big fan of the Xbox 360 controller and since I already have a couple I figured it would be easiest (and probably most economical) to go the route of buying the Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver which simply let you use your Xbox 360 controllers with your PC. Looking around I quickly discovered that these receivers were in shorter supply than they used to be, some places even charging quite a bit for them. Still, I ended up finding some eStores on Amazon that had them for fairly cheap and nabbed one.
When it finally arrived I immediately recognized it as a fake – not just some other brand, but a genuine, stereotypical Chinese counterfeit. The packaging didn’t quite look up to par – while at first glance it was reasonably similar to official looking packaging, the plastic blister pack wasn’t nearly as stylized as most Xbox 360 related packs, and perhaps even more telling, it wasn’t an immense fucking chore to get into. Also despite some okay use of Xbox 360 and Xbox Live logos and branding style there wasn’t a single sign of a Microsoft logo anywhere on the packaging – not a good sign as Microsoft LOVES to crap their corporate logo all over everything they make. The unit itself looked identical to the real thing save for the Microsoft logo on the front being replaced by an Xbox 360 logo and the little holographic seal sticker on the back saying “XBHD” instead of Microsoft. Other stickers on the unit and packaging looked a little off as well. Upon closer inspection it is even more suspicious – the connect button isn’t flush and is even a little offset, the rubber “foot” ring on the bottom isn’t seated perfectly and looks a little odd, and the piece of the housing where the cord goes in wasn’t seated properly. None of these were major issues, but an obvious departure from the high quality standards that you usually see in Microsoft hardware.
“Quite a departure from the real packaging but good at a glance.”
At first I was pissed about being duped by Amazon (who listed it as being a Microsoft product and having pictures of the genuine article) but the more I researched the more I discovered how common place these knockoff receivers actually are – they’ve been floating around for years now, presumably ever since Microsoft stopped supplying the real thing as readily. Most people have reported success with them. In fact, some people even preferred them to the genuine ones as apparently they don’t have the fuse issues the real ones have. If I complained and returned it by the time I paid return shipping and whatever “restocking” fee the eStore might have I’d probably be paying double what I paid and, I figured, if it works, I certainly didn’t pay much for it even if it is a fake. Still, I was highly skeptical – I figured though, if it were a true counterfeit and would work okay with the official Microsoft drivers I wouldn’t be putting myself in any danger by using it and, from what I read, despite some occasional difficulty in getting Windows 7 to recognize the device the official drivers worked fine with it. Still running Windows XP 32bit, I guessed I’d probably be fine.
I wasn’t about to try the software on the disk that came with it figuring that it would be some poorly written knockoff driver that would destabilize my machine, or worse yet be infected with malware (although upon further inspection the disk appeared to include the genuine Microsoft driver, albeit an older version.) I immediately grabbed the Microsoft package and went from there. Hours later, I finally got the fucking thing working. At first I couldn’t get Windows to recognize the device as being compatible with the driver, even after trying to force it to use it. Later I abandoned that version and went for the same one that was on the included disk, and although that one was recognized the driver installation would fail every time. I’ll save the gory details and get to the point – since my solution ended up being an amalgamation of various other tips rather than based on any one thing I read online, here is how I got my knockoff receiver working with Windows XP SP3:
Don’t plug it in yet – if you’ve already done so, go to your Device Manager, uninstall it, and unplug it. It depends on how far you got it, but it’ll likely show up as an “Unknown Device” with a black and yellow exclamation mark on it. It could also show up as a “USB Device” or possibly even as an “Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows”. Just look for the exclamation mark.
- Download and install the latest official Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless package: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/d/xbox-360-wireless-controller-for-windows
- Download and extract this updated version of the device driver to someplace temporary: here
- Plug the receiver in. Windows will detect it and attempt to install a driver for it. If yours behaves as mine did it will NOT automatically match up with the official package you installed in step 1. Otherwise, you got lucky and you’re done!
- Choose the second option: “Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)”. Click Next.
- Choose the second option: “Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install.” Click Next.
- If it shows you a list of hardware categories click Next first. Click “Have Disk…” and find the “xusb21.inf” file that you extracted from the archive in step 2.
- If for some reason it comes up asking for additional files, choose them from the same location where you found “xusb21.inf” in the last step, in the “x86” (or “x64” if you’re running 64bit Windows XP) folder below it.
- If for some reason it asks for “WdfCoInstaller01005.dll” when “WdfCoInstaller01007.dll” is what you’ve got in “x86” you can insert the included driver CD and find it there. It was in “PC Driverx86” on my disk. It did this to me though it was a result of my earlier attempts to get the original driver working.
- It should copy the files and then be done. If you receive a “Fatal error during installation” error my solution didn’t work for you. Otherwise, click Finish and try syncing up your controller!
I hope that helps somebody out there. If the thought of dealing with shady Chinese hardware and old driver packages scares you I’d recommend trying to track down a wired Microsoft Xbox 360 controller (a Play and Charge kit for the wireless controller will NOT work) from a used game store and simply using that if you can find it for cheap, though they sell at Gamestop for about 3 times what I got my knockoff receiver for. *shrug*
Some sources:
The thread where I originally found the updated driver
A blog article troubleshooting similar problems under Windows 7 64bit
Update 9/2016:
Manace comments “It works on Windows 10 x64. You should first start a cmd.exe as administrator and type: “bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING on” (without the quotes). Then reboot and you see in the down right corner “TESTMODE”. This means you can install unsigned drivers.
Now got to your device manager, select the unknown device, choose update driver, select the folder where you extracted the driver package and voila!”
You can also install unsigned drivers this way.
As Xbox 360 Controller passionate lovers, you can enjoy the great convenience it brings you. However, at the same time, you must be familiar with the scene that when you were playing the computer games, the Xbox 360 Controller suddenly stops working or works with a blinking / freezing buttons or cannot connect to the console.
It is conceivable that you are very upset about its failing to work or sometimes, it is detected by Windows 10 but not configured when you are combating in a game. But how to fix the Xbox 360 wired or wireless Controller not working on Windows 10 is far beyond your capacity.
Just as you can imagine, the not working or not connected Xbox 360 Controller can be caused by the Xbox 360 Controller peripheral going wrong and the Xbox 360 Controller driver issues.
Now it is the time for curing this Xbox 360 not working disease.
Solutions:
Solution 1: Check Xbox 360 Controller battery
You should at first make sure the batteries of the Xbox 360 Controller is working properly on Windows 10. To complete this step, you can choose to insert a new AA battery pack into the Xbox 360 Controller.
Or if you are using the Xbox wireless 360 Controller, you are advised to replace the former one with a new wireless Xbox 360 Controller battery pack. But also if you are rechargeable battery consumer, you can just recharge the battery pack to see if the Xbox 360 Controller is working correctly.
Solution 2: Change a USB port
If the battery is in good condition, now you can try to plug your Xbox 360 Controller to another USB 2.0 or 3.0 port to check if it is the broken USB port that resulted in this Xbox 360 Controller not having a steady connection with Windows 10.
You can try to plug your Xbox 360 Controller into many different USB ports to test it, in this case, you may also be able to fix the Xbox 360 Controller blinking or flashing issues by reconnecting the Xbox 360 Controller to a different USB receiver. And here you can fix USB port not working issue on Windows 10.
Solution 3: Update Xbox 360 Controller drivers
If the Xbox 360 Controller not connected or not working error persists on your PC, it turns out the fact that the Xbox 360 Controller drivers are experiencing some problems, therefore, you would better update the Xbox 360 Controller wireless or wired drivers to the latest version to avoid the driver corruption, missing or interference.
1: Go to Device manager.
2: Expand the Xbox 360 Peripherals and find out Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows 10.
Here if you cannot find the right driver for Xbox 360 Controller, maybe you can find it in Other Devices or Network adapters.
3: Right click Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows and choose to Uninstall it.
4: Click Scan for hardware changes or just restart your PC, then Windows 10 will automatically install a new Xbox 360 Controller driver.
Or if you want to update the Xbox 360 Controller driver for an advanced or customized one, you can turn to Driver Booster, which is a professional and secure driver downloading and updating tool, you can rely on it.
Driver Booster, an automatically drivers download and update tool, can help users to get the latest graphic driver, audio driver, USB driver, mouse driver etc with one click. And as the best driver scanner, it can detected the most outdated and missing drivers for your computer.
Besides the driver function, it supports to download and update the game components such as Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable, Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable, OpenAL, etc.
You need to download, install and run Driver Booster at first.
Then Driver Booster will help you get the latest Xbox 360 Controller drivers as you like, you can do nothing else but click two clicks. In this way, what you can pick up is the high-quality driver as well as the legitimate Xbox 360 Controller driver.
However, it is feasible that you go to the Xbox 360 Controller official site to download and update the latest drivers for Windows 10, but it may be a little troublesome for you if you are not a computer veteran.
Solution 4: Uncheck Power Management
It is possible that your power management causes the Xbox 360 controller fail to work or connect to Windows 10, thus unchecking it may be a reliable way.
1: Under Xbox Peripherals, right click Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows 10 to open the Properties.
2: Navigate to Power Management tab, and uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. Then click OK.
Related View:Fix Allow the Computer to Turn Off this Device to Save Power Grayed Out
Solution 5: Perform Windows Update
If you have a blinking or flashing or just not working Xbox 360 Controller, you can use the Windows 10 embedded-in tool to keep the Xbox 360 Controller driver up to date, thus solving its failing to work issue.
Go as the path: Settings > Update and Security > Windows Update > Check for updates. And this is the tutorial: how to use Windows Update in Windows 10.
Drivers For Xbox 360 Controller
Then Windows 10 will automatically check for your gaming software drivers, if possible, it will install all the up-to-date drivers for you, including various Xbox 360 Controller drivers.
Xbox 360 Controller Emulator
From all the solutions presented, you can adopt one effective, the Xbox 360 Controller, either wired or wireless, you can find it working properly on your PC, and you can enjoy playing games with Xbox 360 Controller gamepads again.
Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller Driver Pc
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