Guide: How to install a troublesome Xbox One (slim) Wireless Adapter for Windows in Windows 10

The Backstory

Some time back I decided I wanted to connect a game controller wirelessly to my PC.  Not having a controller yet I went on Amazon like the model prime citizen that I am, and I bought an Xbox One controller with an included wireless adapter for Windows PC's (this one, more specifically):

I've played around with connecting other controllers to bluetooth adapters on various devices and what not using third party tools, but I figured this combination would be a straightforward process:  connect it and be done.  After all, it's a Microsoft product being connected to a Microsoft Operating System, so it's not like compatibility is going to be an issue, right?

In hindsight, I should've known better.  It never fails.  The moment I think something will be smooth sailing is the moment that God™ decides to throw a proverbial wrench in the works.  In this case, it would seem that Microsoft has let support for wireless controller connections fall by the wayside.  It's apparently a fairly common problem, the answer to which from Microsoft's support forums seems to be 'connect it via USB' (that, of course, is when the Xbox and Windows teams aren't simply trying to lay blame at each other's feet).  Realizing that tech support was going to be a bust, I started researching to resolve my own issue.  I downloaded tools and drivers, attempted to force install things, and failed each and every time.  At the time I eventually decided it was more trouble than it was worth; it had a mode that allowed it to be connected via bluetooth (albeit a bit annoying; you have to manually pair it each and every time you wanted to use it that way) and I could just plug it in via USB if worse came to worse, so I tossed the wireless adapter in a drawer and wrote that part of the purchase off as a loss.

Fast forward almost a year to today, when my wife and I decided to clean out some drawers and I ran across the wireless adapter again.  Being a tech, I hate admitting that something tech related had, in fact, beaten me, so I decided to do a bit of searching, to see if anything new popped up.  Turns out, I'm glad I did.

The Fix

Enter this article from ifixit.  Skimming over the article it quickly becomes clear that the article is for a different type/model of xbox wireless adapter, but one thing on the page caught my attention:

This is helpful info that I hadn't run into before.  I'm not sure if you've ever used the Microsoft Update Catalog before (hint:  if you're following this guide you're about to), but there's a whole lot of files to sift through!  Lots and lots of files, seemingly for the same thing, each of which coming with the chance to bork things up if it ends up being the incorrect choice.  There are quite a few files for the xbox adapter with a higher/newer version number than what the ifixit website points to, so it's almost a sure bet I that didn't try that particular driver file before.  I had some drive issues in the last year, and as a result my installation of Windows 10 was now bork-free (I'll let you know later if that little comment comes back to bite me).  So I went to the Update Catalog, typed "Xbox wireless" in the search bar in the top right, sifted through the results for the exact version of the file I needed, and...

I find two files, seemingly identical, but with different file sizes.  Lovely.  Grabbing both driver files both resulted in .CAB's (MS's compression type of choice; 7-zip, WinRAR, PeaZip, and even the Windows file explorer all handle it just fine), so that rules out ZIP's vs. EXE's.  Having a Y chromosome I naturally decided that bigger is better (well, that and guessing that the bigger driver file might have some info in its INF file that the other one didn't), so I went with the version of the driver that was 217kb.  Once I made my choice and got to work everything just fell into place and lo, all was well in the world.

Now that I've bored you with the story and how I got to the fix, here's the steps to take if your slim Xbox wireless adapter is giving you trouble:

• Go to Microsoft's Update Catalog (here) and select the the file marked "Xbox - Net - 7/11/2017 12:00:00 AM - 1.0.46.1, Windows 10 Creators Update and Later Servicing Drivers, Windows 10 S and Later Servicing Drivers, 217 KB" (in the image clip above this it's the one shown at the bottom of the image)
• Once you've downloaded the resulting CAB file, extract it into its own folder somewhere where you'll be able to find it.  Make note of where it is before continuing.
• Plug in your wireless adapter.  After a few seconds, open the device manager.  You should see something like this:

• Double-click to open the 'XBOX ACC' device, then from the next window click the button that says 'Update Driver' (NOTE: error code 28 is what I had as well.  If you have an error code other than 28 go ahead and do these steps anyway since it will fix a variety of issues, but know that this may or may not fix your particular issue):

• In the next window that comes up you'll be given two choices; choose the bottom option, 'Browse my computer for driver software':

• Next, in the field marked 'Search for drivers in this location', enter the location of the folder you extracted the CAB into (type it in or use the 'browse' button and find it that way, it doesn't matter).  Once this is done, click the 'Next' button:

• If all goes well you'll be presented with a screen saying your driver was successfully installed; click 'Finish'.  Once the device is successfully installed, it should appear in the device manager like this:

I figured since this wasn't the easiest thing for me to find that I'd go ahead and document it for others, just in case they had the same troubles I had.  Hopefully, if you've followed along this far, it has helped you as well.