Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsFix for XBOX ACC error
Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2016
For all of the reasons I wanted to upgrade from a 360 controller; I love it. The D-Pad is great, the analog sticks are much nicer, it's a nice light weight, feels great in your hands, has really nice tactile feedback (feels more like the Steam controller in this sense), etc. It's a really exceptional controller. (I also appreciate the redesigned battery cover, since the one on my 360 was iffy and had to be replaced.)
For me, and apparently a few others, the installation was terrible (Win 10 64-bit). If all goes well, the wireless dongle is plug-n-play. It was pretty far from it! It took a lot of troubleshooting. I plugged the dongle in, and the PC didn't recognize it. It came up as "XBOX ACC" in my devices. The controller couldn't pair with it at this stage.
Thanks to trial and error, some clues I found online, I figured out how to install. If this happens to you, follow these directions. (Of course I find a good guide now that I know what keywords to search online, but maybe this will be easier for you to find, and I'll spell the steps out a bit more clearly.)
1) Reboot with dongle unplugged and log in as administrator
2) Plug in USB dongle
3) Open Internet Explorer (no other browser will work)
4) via IE, open catalog.update.microsoft.com
5) Search "XBOX wireless"
6) Of the several drivers/results that show, the most recent did not work for me. I had to use "Microsoft-Other hardware-Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows", Driver (Networking), v. 19.53.40.791 (189 KB) - click to add to cart
7) Open the cart in the top right to download
8) Extract the download into a folder on your computer (anywhere)
9) Open Devices and Printers (in the control panel, remember, the dongle should be plugged in)
10) Find "XBOX ACC" - this is the dongle, mostly unrecognized by Windows
11) Right click XBOX ACC > Properties
12) Navigate to the Hardware tab and click the [Properties] button
13) In the first tab, General, click [Change settings]
14) Navigate to the Driver tab (second tab from left)
15) Select [Update driver] button
16) Click the second option, "Browse my computer for driver software"
17) Navigate to the folder you extracted the downloaded driver into
18) It should be recognized. At this point, I still couldn't get the controller to pair, but it did after a reboot.
A couple installation notes, the other (newer) drivers were blocked by Windows. I don't recall what it said verbatim, but something to the affect of "This device or driver version is known to interrupt Windows sleeping, and has been blocked by Windows. Please contact device manufacturer for troubleshooting." Com'on MS, really? Also, from everything I've read online, if you call up MS for troubleshooting, they'll have you do a lot of things that don't help in the slightest (cleaning the registry, etc.). Sad that they can't help you.
Thankfully, I run a recording studio, so I'm used to pairing troublesome hardware, so the troubleshooting didn't take me too long. Still, I have troubleshooting chops due to my use of niche hardware. This MS device is pretty far from niche!! If I wouldn't have been able to get it running, I would've returned it. It was worth 25 minutes of troubleshooting to keep it, but I'm unimpressed with the process.