Vista - Guitar Hero II Controller (XBox 360) on Vista

Maybe I should've posted this message in this forum right from the beginning
- I'm just quoting my post from the hardware forums...:

Hello there!
I'm not sure if anybody is familiar with this piece of hardware - it's a
normal USB game controller. =)
Anyway - I've read ALL over the internet that people have no problems at
all with Vista recognizing the guitar as an XBox 360 Controller straight
away... Well... Not for me...

I installed the 1.1 XBox 360 Acessories Software from Microsoft and the
controller kind of installs, but only partially.

What I mean is this:

In the Device Manager I have the XBox 360 controller under the standard
controller for Windows class.

USB\VID_1430&PID_4748&REV_3122

Then I have an USB HID interface device:

USB\VID_1430&PID_4748&IG_00

And then I have an unknown Device under "Other devices":

HID\VID_1430&PID_4748&IG_00

(parent: USB\VID_1430&PID_4748&IG_00\6&1b44eb60&10&00)

The problem is that although the controller IS working in some games it
isn't listed in the control panel under "game controllers" and most
games/programs don't recognize it. I guess they would if the most
important device ID strings weren't in the "unknown device" part, e.g.:

HID_DEVICE_SYSTEM_GAME (this line enables the game controller
functionality in Vista)
HID_DEVICE_UP:0001_U:0005
HID_DEVICE

Does anybody know how to fix this problem? So basically how to make the
controller appear in the "game controllers" list? I've spent half the day on
trying to figure that one out...

Jan Milewski

P.S. The installation process in itself was a bit... strange. At first the
guitar was recognized as a "Guitar Hero X-plorer" and Vista automatically
installed the XBox 360 Controller drivers for it BUT after that the
controller was recognized a second time and this time no drivers could be
found - I ran a driver search on my system and the "second part" of the
controller installed itself as the "HID device/unknown device" combo listed
above...

"Lim-Dul" <LimDul@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C984DBD3-182E-49E6-B4A1-B9D6B52202D4@microsoft.com...
> Maybe I should've posted this message in this forum right from the
> beginning
> - I'm just quoting my post from the hardware forums...:
>
> I installed the 1.1 XBox 360 Acessories Software from Microsoft and the
> controller kind of installs, but only partially.
>
> In the Device Manager I have the XBox 360 controller under the standard
> controller for Windows class.
> USB\VID_1430&PID_4748&REV_3122
> USB\VID_1430&PID_4748&IG_00
> HID\VID_1430&PID_4748&IG_00
>
> (parent: USB\VID_1430&PID_4748&IG_00\6&1b44eb60&10&00)
>
> The problem is that although the controller IS working in some games it
> isn't listed in the control panel under "game controllers" and most
> games/programs don't recognize it. I guess they would if the most
> important device ID strings weren't in the "unknown device" part, e.g.:
>
> HID_DEVICE_SYSTEM_GAME (this line enables the game controller
> functionality in Vista)
> HID_DEVICE_UP:0001_U:0005
> HID_DEVICE
>
> Does anybody know how to fix this problem? So basically how to make the
> controller appear in the "game controllers" list? I've spent half the day
> on
> trying to figure that one out...
>
> Jan Milewski

Nope, never tried the X guitar on Vista. I got my PS2 guitar working with
the Red Octane PS2 to XBox/USB/GC adapter, played Frets on Fire twice and
decided the PS2 version was just much better.

Not sure what to suggest. Might try running dxwebsetup.exe again, see if
Microsoft has released an updated xinput dll for controllers. Maybe
something recent specifically addresses the x-ploder guitar.

I wish Harmonix would release a PC version of Rock Band... /sigh.

> Nope, never tried the X guitar on Vista. I got my PS2 guitar working with
> the Red Octane PS2 to XBox/USB/GC adapter, played Frets on Fire twice and
> decided the PS2 version was just much better.
>
> Not sure what to suggest. Might try running dxwebsetup.exe again, see if
> Microsoft has released an updated xinput dll for controllers. Maybe
> something recent specifically addresses the x-ploder guitar.
>
> I wish Harmonix would release a PC version of Rock Band... /sigh.

My problem was already solved on the Hardware forum. It turned out that my
INFCACHE.1 file was corrupted - it was a simple matter of deleting the file
and suddenly the controller started working like a charm.

"Lim-Dul" <LimDul@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:64F94376-D014-407D-992B-1FDEAD3BBF2B@microsoft.com...
>> Nope, never tried the X guitar on Vista. I got my PS2 guitar working with
>> the Red Octane PS2 to XBox/USB/GC adapter, played Frets on Fire twice and
>> decided the PS2 version was just much better.
>>
>> Not sure what to suggest. Might try running dxwebsetup.exe again, see if
>> Microsoft has released an updated xinput dll for controllers. Maybe
>> something recent specifically addresses the x-ploder guitar.
>>
>> I wish Harmonix would release a PC version of Rock Band... /sigh.
>
> My problem was already solved on the Hardware forum. It turned out that my
> INFCACHE.1 file was corrupted - it was a simple matter of deleting the
> file
> and suddenly the controller started working like a charm.

Good to hear, i'll have to look that one up.