How to Setup a "Fake" 360 Wireless Reciever (might need sticked).

[Howard_Casto]

In a very anti-climactic end to my "what can you get on eBay for 5 dollars" challenge, I ended up getting a knock-off 360 wireless receiver for my gaming pc. 

These guys work just like the official Microsoft receiver once installed, but they don't install automatically.  After fiddling with it for 20 minutes (and I'm good at this stuff).  I thought a guide might be helpful.  The main reason I'm bothering is because the official receivers are already becoming a rarity, they are needlessly costly and as the Xbone phases out the 360, this will become a bigger issue in the future. 

Ok details in the next post... there are a lot of steps, but that's so it is clear exactly what you need to do, it shouldn't take you more than a couple of minutes if you follow my instructions to the letter. 

[Howard_Casto]

Steps to get a Knock-off 360 Wireless Receiver to work.

1.  Plug in the dongle and let it try to install, it'll fail but don't worry.
2.  From the start menu go to "Devices and Printers, you'll see something towards the bottom that is either named "360" something or other, or unknown device. 
3.  Right Click and select properties and go to the "Details" tab.
4.  Select "Hardware IDs" from the drop-down list, copy down the IDs given.

Example:
USB\VID_045E&PID_0291&REV_0114
USB\VID_045E&PID_0291

5.  Go ahead and unplug the dongle for now, we have some work to do.
6. If you don't have a copy of the official 360 drivers on your pc, install them now.  (Note:  If you DO have them you'll find them in "C:\program files\Microsoft Xbox 360 Accessories")
7. Go to C:\program files\Microsoft Xbox 360 Accessories, open Xusb21.inf in notepad.

8. The "official" entry we are looking for is:

%XUSB21.DeviceName%=CC_Install, USB\Vid_045E&Pid_0719

So any entry we find with that needs the VID and PID replaced with the ones our device uses (in this example 045E and 0291 respectively.) Note that you can also add a new line AFTER each of the original entries with the new VID and PID and it'll work that way.

9.  Go ahead and save this to the desktop and then copy it back to the original location (we have to do this so windows doesn't complain about admin privelages). 
10.  Plug in your device.... if it is detected properly you are finished.  (Unlikely)

Otherwise:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Go to Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Device manager.  Your receiver should show up with a !

12.  Right-click on the receiver and  go to "update driver software", when prompted, click "Browse my computer for Driver Software"

13.  In the next screen click "Let me pick from a list of device drivers..."Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver" should be the one you choose.  If it complains do it anyway. If this gives you issues you can optionally browse to the "Microsoft 360 accessories" folder from before and it should pick them up that way.

14.  You are done!  The driver should retain itself even after a reboot every time you plug in the dongle on this computer!

[Howard_Casto]

Other useful Info:

How to sync on the pc (works for any receiver): 

Plug in the receiver, and hold the button down until it starts blinking. Hold the power button on your controller until it turns on, press and hold it's syncing button until you get a quick "spiral" on the light ring.  They should sync up in a second or two.

How to turn off your Controller on the PC. (works for any receiver):

Go to:  http://pety.me/XboxExt/ and Download the little exe there.  You might as well put a shortcut to it in your startup folder if you use 360 controllers regularly.  Now if you hold the guide button on your controller for a few seconds, you'll be prompted to turn it off.  Simple! 

[Howard_Casto]

Note:  If your VID/PID are the same as in the examples (which is actually the case 90% of the time) you can use this inf file instead of making one from scratch.  At least this is the inf I made for my pc (windows 7 64bit) and it worked.  Put it in the "Microsoft Xbox 360 Accessories" folder mentioned above.

[Slippyblade]

Good info.  I've got a real one that I use pretty regularly, but I've seen the knock offs a lot.  Good post.

[Howard_Casto]

I appreciate it.  The reason I did it is if you do a google shopping search right now for the 360 receiver, only one on the first page listed via "best match" is the Microsoft one.  Likewise if you sort by price, which most people do, the Microsoft version won't even show up. 

It isn't really a cost issue, they cost about the same, but an availability issue.  They aren't completely scarce yet, but they will be soon.  It's weird anyway, these devices are IDENTICAL hardware-wise, but for some unknown reason the manufacturer decided to change the PID of the device, which causes the install issues.  I would say this is for legal reasons, but they are still using the Microsoft vendor ID, which is highly illegal.

[wp34]

Thanks Howard.  I was just looking into doing this yesterday so your timing is great.  I'm getting tired of re-purchasing games I already own on for the Wii U just so I don't have to dig out my old consoles from the basement.   I am thinking about just hooking up an old PC to my TV and running some emulators instead.  This would be just the ticket.   

[Generic Eric]

do you have a link for the budget wireless receiver?  I have some from amazon.com, but the neighbor wanted one.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I do, but they went off sale. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261240382210?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Still they are only 9 bucks, with free shipping, which is pretty good. 

I order a bunch of ebay stuff that just happens to be from tomtop, they are pretty reputable as far as ebay purchases from China go.  They shipped the thing in like 2 days. 

[SegaOutrun]

Hello howard this may be off topic but i have 2 official xbox wireless controllers and unfortunately windows list them with same ID name "xbox wireless 360 controller" which make it hard for my pad programs like xpadder to recognize them as two different controllers. How can I find the unique identifier for each controller and how can I rename how windows names them? If I could leave one alone and name the other something "wired xbox controller", my life would be easier. Btw i tried making two profiles in xpadder and it works until i reboot and it forgets that each controller is different and maps both of them to the keys for player 1.

[pbj]

What Howard has described is a pretty well known method for hand jamming drivers to work with troublesome devices. 

The best program for getting details about what you've plugged in is USBView:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff560019%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

 

[Malenko]

when I had one it was "plug in USB thingie, open device manager, update driver with M$ driver" the end.

[Howard_Casto]

when I had one it was "plug in USB thingie, open device manager, update driver with M$ driver" the end.

That often works with earlier revisions of XP, but the current security model in vista and above requires you to manually update the driver every time you plug the dongle in or after your pc restarts. That is unless the vid/pid are defined in an inf file for the driver.

[Howard_Casto]

Hello howard this may be off topic but i have 2 official xbox wireless controllers and unfortunately windows list them with same ID name "xbox wireless 360 controller" which make it hard for my pad programs like xpadder to recognize them as two different controllers. How can I find the unique identifier for each controller and how can I rename how windows names them? If I could leave one alone and name the other something "wired xbox controller", my life would be easier. Btw i tried making two profiles in xpadder and it works until i reboot and it forgets that each controller is different and maps both of them to the keys for player 1.

There isn't any way, unfortunately.  Since they are both official controllers they'll share the vid/pid which is what gives the device it's description.  I've found a way to get a unique address for the next version of Troubleshooter 2, but that won't really help you as xpadder would have to be coded to detect devices that way.

[Malenko]

when I had one it was "plug in USB thingie, open device manager, update driver with M$ driver" the end.

That often works with earlier revisions of XP, but the current security model in vista and above requires you to manually update the driver every time you plug the dongle in or after your pc restarts. That is unless the vid/pid are defined in an inf file for the driver.

I used it with 7, not Fista 

[mike boss]

Thanks for the info Howard.
Also thanks pbj for posting that link.
I'm having trouble with a Micro USB Bluetooth transmitter..... the link you provided could help.

[andyroo]

Hi just had to sign up to say thanks, also I felt it was worth posting because, I used your Xusb21 inf file and even though my hardware ID was very slightly different, it still worked. Now I can use my 360 controller on my PC for GTAV, long after my ---smurfy--- xbox died! Thanks so much, you saved me buying a new xbox one PC controller. There are so many useless guides etc for this but yours worked perfectly, so thankyou!