XBox 360 Wireless controller on Windows 7/2008r2

by Jesse Houwing

A friend recommended me to buy an xbox 360 controller to play Skyrim on the TV, because my TV and PC are quite far from the couch I decided to buy a wireless controller and an usb wireless connector for Windows on ebay. The one I picked looked real (had the right logo in the picture and has a hologram sticker on the bottom), though now that I received it, it looks like the wireless receiver might not be as genuine as the seller told me it would be.

The wireless controller wasn't being recognized, even after installing the latest official version of the driver.

A short search lead me to this post which explains how to tell Windows which driver to load. I deviated a bit from the steps presented here, as I found it easier than trying to find the right driver in the long list of drivers that ship with Windows.

  1. Unplug the xbox 360 usb wireless controller.
  2. Download the latest driver. Go to the Microsoft download site and download the latest Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows driver for your platform.
  3. Run the installer (next, next, next, finish)
  4. Extract the driver to a temporary location using your favorite archiver (I used 7-zip)
  5. Open the device manager and force uninstall all "unidentified devices" so that you know exactly which driver to update when you insert the wireless controller.
  6. Plug in the the xbox 360 usb wireless controller
  7. Refresh the device manager
  8. Look for an unidentified device right-click it and choose "Update Driver Software" from the context menu
  9. Select "Browse my computer for driver software" and browse to the location where you extracted the driver software.
  10. Browse to the following folder: "[Extract Location]\xbox360\setup64\files\driver\win7" and select that.
  11. You're offered 3 different options, choose the one that says "Xbox 360 Wireless receiver for Windows"
  12. If a warning pops up that the driver might not be compatible with the device,ignore it and install the driver anyway.

Your wireless receiver should now work just fine, even after you unplug it and plug it back in.

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