Getting Xbox 360 Wireless Controllers and Dongle Working on Windows 10 and 11

In the past you used to only have to install your Xbox 360 drivers from an installer executable that you would either get from Microsoft's site or, if you still have it, from a CD that came with your hardware. This no longer works. The good news is that current versions of Windows now already have the Xbox 360 peripheral drivers ready to go, Windows for whatever reason, no longer automatically recognizes the peripherals when they are plugged into your PC. In order to get your hardware to work on newer versions of Windows, you need to select the appropriate driver from the Device Manager. These steps will also work for a third party aftermarket dongle or controller.

(If you're here because your first party Microsoft dongle died, this Youtuber found a repair, but please note the component that needs to be replaced is a micro component, which is a tricky fix even if your handy with a solder iron.)

You can no longer use the installer, you will need to manually assign the drivers. 

 

 

1. Plug in your Xbox 360 wireless dongle into the PC. If you are plugging in a wired controller just follow these steps for now as well and plug in your controller. 

2. Start device manager. You can start it by pressing Windows Key + R and pasting in devmgmt.msc. You can also type device manager into the search that comes up after you hit the start button. 

3. You should see your dongle as an unknown device. You're going to want to right click on it and select the Update Driver option. 

4. Select the option to Browse My Computer For Driver Software.

5. Select the option that says Let Me Pick From a List of Available Drivers. You should now see a list of available Xbox 360 drivers in the list to select from:

Be sure to select the appropriate driver for your peripheral. If you're installing the dongle you should do this for the dongle first. Let your dongle discover your controller, and then you may need to repeat this process for the first controller you connect once it is also discovered as an unrecognized device.

PLEASE NOTE: At some point Microsoft made it so that the Home/Guide button is automatically hard-mapped to open up a Windows Game overlay. This, probably intentionally, conflicts with using Steam Big Picture mode and the Steam overlay. As a result I would suggest installing the earliest version of the drivers that will work for your Xbox 360 peripherals. You can also try reverting the controller firmware by opening the Xbox Accessories app, then pressing Windows Key + R. and then running:

> xboxaccessories:\\firmwareupdate?legacyDowngrade=true

If for whatever reason your drivers are not available, you can install the drivers from the executable, and then seeing if the drivers are then listed after a reboot. For posterity, I have included a download link the the drivers here since they don't seem to be available at all from Microsoft themselves any longer.

No emails, follow up questions and comments below please. Thanks.