The Three Prong Path to Wireless Freedom When it comes to wireless Xbox 360 on Windows you have three options: the expensive and easy way, the cheap and somewhat frustrating way, and the grey market middle ground. If you’re sitting at your computer desk and not across the living room, for example–then you might just want to skip the whole hassle, just, and be done with it.

1. Xbox Wireless Receiver Driver

Best photoshop plug-ins. A wired controller is pure plug and play with no hassle–but if you absolutely must have wireless play at your PC, you’ll need to buy a USB-to-wireless adapter. That’s right, you can’t just connect a wireless Xbox 360 controller to your PC using Bluetooth, or anything like that.

Xbox Wireless Receiver Driver

Xbox 360 controllers use a propriety 2.4Ghz communication method that need a specific a USB adapter made for the Xbox 360 controller–no substitutes allowed. This is where the decision making process gets slightly complicated. Microsoft doesn’t sell the adapter by itself. They sell it in a bundle with a wireless controller–but if you already have a wireless controller, you probably don’t want to buy another one just to get the adapter. If you want to buy the adapter separately, you can, but you’ll either be buying a Chinese knockoff product, or an official adapter that’s been separated from its kit by a third party. Picking from these potential options is the most important step in the project.