Use an Xbox One controller for Dead Rising 2 on Windows 10

If you are using Windows 10 and have had no luck being able to get your Xbox One controller to work with Dead Rising 2, even after following a list of instructions then give this a go. It's much simpler, keeps within using official Microsoft drivers and most importantly, does not require the use of third party software or emulators.

Description

If you're using WIndows 10 then like me, you'll have noticed Dead Rising 2's controller support stopped working with Xbox One controllers a while back with it normally occuring with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

If you've looked it up online then you'll have found a whole bunch of advice and sets of instructions to try and get things working again. The most prominent ones by far involve downloading and using third party software and emulators, of which the most common one is Xbox 360 Controller Emulator, or X360CE.

The chances are unless you're using Windows 8 or a third party control pad like a Dual Shock 4 or others that use Direct Input, this isn't going to help you in the slightest and all it will result in is you throwing unnecessary files into your game install directories that do something whilst essentially doing nothing worthwhile. Dead Rising 2 will not recognise your control pad.

If you haven't already, I would recommend in the Dead Rising 2 main menu, going into Options > PC Settings and setting the Controller option to "Enable". Most of you will have tried this before reading this guide however and the option will be greyed out, set to "Disable", unabled to be changed.

It's frustrating, especially so when Dead Rising 2 was built for being used with control pads. The game is perfectly playable with a keyboard and mouse but some stuff feels a bit off and it's one of those games that just doesn't feel right to play using this control method.

You'll be happy to know then, there's a solution and it doesn't require the use of third party software, emulators or drivers and to top it off, it's a fairly quick fix that's easy to follow.

The reason Xbox One controllers don't work with Dead Rising 2 is Microsoft messed up driver support in some games by changing how they are identified without providing legacy support for older games and software that don't know things have changed. They potentially changed some other stuff for XInput as well but essentially for what we care about, Xbox One controllers now go by a different name in Windows 10.

Why Microsoft updated the drivers and changed this is beyond me but there is a fix! Read on below and you should be up and running with full controller support for Dead Rising 2 and pretty much everything else that accepts XInput controllers below!

Solution

To solve this problem, you're going to need to download older drivers for your Xbox One controller from Microsoft and put them in place of the current ones.

1. Go here[www.catalog.update.microsoft.com] and click the bottom download button on the right hand side.
   
   It probably doesn't matter which one you go with but for simplicity, grab this one. In case the order is different, it is the one that is 1.5MB in size and has the name "Microsoft - Other hardware - Microsoft Xbox One Controller".
   
   
2. A CAB file should have been downloaded. Simply extract it to a folder of your choosing, to make it easy to follow, create a few folder and call it "XD" for Xbox Driver.
   
   
3. Open the Device Manager. A quick and easy way to do this is to right click the Windows 10 Start button and selecting Device Manager from the list.
   
   
4. Go to the bottom of the list and around there should be an option named "Xbox Peripherals". Expand this (click the arrow to the left of it once or double click the option) if it isn't already.
   
   
5. There should be an item in the list with the name "Xbox Controller", if it isn't and your Xbox One controller isn't currently connected, now would be a good time to do so.
   
   
6. Right click on Xbox Controller and select "Update Driver Software...".
   
   
7. Select "Browse my computer for driver software" and then "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer".
   
   
8. Click the "Have Disk..." button, click the "Browse..." button in the next window and then navigate to your XD folder.
   
   
9. You should see a file named "xb1usb.inf" inside the folder in this window. Select it and click "Open".
   
   
10. In the list you are now seeing on screen, you should see an item called "Microsoft Xbox One Controller". Select it and click on next to install it.
    
    
11. In the Device Manager your Xbox One controller should now be named "Microsoft Xbox One Controller" instead of "Xbox Controller". You have successfully replaced the driver and you should be good to go. If things don't work at first, disconnect and reconnect your control pad.
    
    
12. Your control pad will likely work from the get go in the Dead Rising 2 main menu but if it doesn't, quickly go into Options > PC Settings and change the Controller option to "Enable". This option should no longer be greyed out.

You are done! Hopefully this has worked out and you now have fully functioning controller support without having to deal with iffy third party software.

Disclaimer

You may have issues with the Windows 10 Game DVR, using a headset via the control pad and UWP software with the control pad after this, for myself the home button now makes Steam the active window. I haven't played around with things enough to see if this is the case or if Steam is simply taking over while it's running but in either case, a working control pad in games seems like a good tradeoff.

Whatever the case, you can upgrade to the current version of the drivers easily by doing the same thing again only instead of browsing for files, you just tell it to search and install them automatically.

If you are using a generic Direct Input controller, a DualShock 4 or just a third party control pad in general then this guide isn't likely to help you. DualShock 4 has some pretty good software and drivers out there currently that should let it work perfectly as an Xbox One or Xbox 360 controller. If you're using generic Direct Input or other another third party control pad and they don't work, you may need some additional software to get things going.

This guide is specifically for enabling official Xbox One controllers for use in Dead Rising 2 and other games with similar issues running on Windows 10 since the Anniversary Update.