Category Archives: Rambling

Counterfeit Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver Drivers

After playing around with Nintendo 64 emulators with the intention of taking screenshots for some N64 games that I plan to review one of these days, I determined that it was finally time to break down and get a new gamepad for my PC. None of my other pads had anything akin to analog sticks – I mostly bought them with playing much older games in mind. I’m a big fan of the Xbox 360 controller and since I already have a couple I figured it would be easiest (and probably most economical) to go the route of buying the Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver which simply let you use your Xbox 360 controllers with your PC. Looking around I quickly discovered that these receivers were in shorter supply than they used to be, some places even charging quite a bit for them. Still, I ended up finding some eStores on Amazon that had them for fairly cheap and nabbed one.

When it finally arrived I immediately recognized it as a fake – not just some other brand, but a genuine, stereotypical Chinese counterfeit. The packaging didn’t quite look up to par – while at first glance it was reasonably similar to official looking packaging, the plastic blister pack wasn’t nearly as stylized as most Xbox 360 related packs, and perhaps even more telling, it wasn’t an immense fucking chore to get into. Also despite some okay use of Xbox 360 and Xbox Live logos and branding style there wasn’t a single sign of a Microsoft logo anywhere on the packaging – not a good sign as Microsoft LOVES to crap their corporate logo all over everything they make. The unit itself looked identical to the real thing save for the Microsoft logo on the front being replaced by an Xbox 360 logo and the little holographic seal sticker on the back saying “XBHD” instead of Microsoft. Other stickers on the unit and packaging looked a little off as well. Upon closer inspection it is even more suspicious – the connect button isn’t flush and is even a little offset, the rubber “foot” ring on the bottom isn’t seated perfectly and looks a little odd, and the piece of the housing where the cord goes in wasn’t seated properly. None of these were major issues, but an obvious departure from the high quality standards that you usually see in Microsoft hardware.

“Quite a departure from the real packaging but good at a glance.”

At first I was pissed about being duped by Amazon (who listed it as being a Microsoft product and having pictures of the genuine article) but the more I researched the more I discovered how common place these knockoff receivers actually are – they’ve been floating around for years now, presumably ever since Microsoft stopped supplying the real thing as readily. Most people have reported success with them. In fact, some people even preferred them to the genuine ones as apparently they don’t have the fuse issues the real ones have. If I complained and returned it by the time I paid return shipping and whatever “restocking” fee the eStore might have I’d probably be paying double what I paid and, I figured, if it works, I certainly didn’t pay much for it even if it is a fake. Still, I was highly skeptical – I figured though, if it were a true counterfeit and would work okay with the official Microsoft drivers I wouldn’t be putting myself in any danger by using it and, from what I read, despite some occasional difficulty in getting Windows 7 to recognize the device the official drivers worked fine with it. Still running Windows XP 32bit, I guessed I’d probably be fine.

I wasn’t about to try the software on the disk that came with it figuring that it would be some poorly written knockoff driver that would destabilize my machine, or worse yet be infected with malware (although upon further inspection the disk appeared to include the genuine Microsoft driver, albeit an older version.) I immediately grabbed the Microsoft package and went from there. Hours later, I finally got the fucking thing working. At first I couldn’t get Windows to recognize the device as being compatible with the driver, even after trying to force it to use it. Later I abandoned that version and went for the same one that was on the included disk, and although that one was recognized the driver installation would fail every time. I’ll save the gory details and get to the point – since my solution ended up being an amalgamation of various other tips rather than based on any one thing I read online, here is how I got my knockoff receiver working with Windows XP SP3:

Don’t plug it in yet – if you’ve already done so, go to your Device Manager, uninstall it, and unplug it. It depends on how far you got it, but it’ll likely show up as an “Unknown Device” with a black and yellow exclamation mark on it. It could also show up as a “USB Device” or possibly even as an “Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows”. Just look for the exclamation mark.

Download and install the latest official Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless package: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/d/xbox-360-wireless-controller-for-windows
Download and extract this updated version of the device driver to someplace temporary: here
Plug the receiver in. Windows will detect it and attempt to install a driver for it. If yours behaves as mine did it will NOT automatically match up with the official package you installed in step 1. Otherwise, you got lucky and you’re done!
Choose the second option: “Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)”. Click Next.
Choose the second option: “Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install.” Click Next.
If it shows you a list of hardware categories click Next first. Click “Have Disk…” and find the “xusb21.inf” file that you extracted from the archive in step 2.
If for some reason it comes up asking for additional files, choose them from the same location where you found “xusb21.inf” in the last step, in the “x86” (or “x64” if you’re running 64bit Windows XP) folder below it.
If for some reason it asks for “WdfCoInstaller01005.dll” when “WdfCoInstaller01007.dll” is what you’ve got in “\x86” you can insert the included driver CD and find it there. It was in “\PC Driver\x86” on my disk. It did this to me though it was a result of my earlier attempts to get the original driver working.
It should copy the files and then be done. If you receive a “Fatal error during installation” error my solution didn’t work for you. Otherwise, click Finish and try syncing up your controller!

I hope that helps somebody out there. If the thought of dealing with shady Chinese hardware and old driver packages scares you I’d recommend trying to track down a wired Microsoft Xbox 360 controller (a Play and Charge kit for the wireless controller will NOT work) from a used game store and simply using that if you can find it for cheap, though they sell at Gamestop for about 3 times what I got my knockoff receiver for. *shrug*

Some sources:
The thread where I originally found the updated driver
A blog article troubleshooting similar problems under Windows 7 64bit

Update 9/2016:

Manace comments “It works on Windows 10 x64. You should first start a cmd.exe as administrator and type: “bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING on” (without the quotes). Then reboot and you see in the down right corner “TESTMODE”. This means you can install unsigned drivers.

Now got to your device manager, select the unknown device, choose update driver, select the folder where you extracted the driver package and voila!”

You can also install unsigned drivers this way.

Dragon Hunting

Seriously, who doesn’t want to ride around on the back of a dragon? They’re also waaaay cooler than your standard wyverns and gryphons even as the young drakes we get stuck with as mounts. While most of the cooler dragon mounts in the game come as rare drops and/or rewards associated with running heroic instances and raids, there are a few that are relatively easy to obtain on your own if you’re more of a solo player as I tend to be.

“Killing Vyragosa 50 fucking times is an unofficial but all too important part of acquiring a TLPD.”

First off we have a couple of proto-drakes. I really dig the way proto-drakes look – very vicious and rugged and their clumsy, primitive walking and flying animations are quite cool as well. You tend to see a lot less people on proto-drakes than normal drakes – I don’t know if this is rarity, a mattered of popularity, or that the rarer normal drakes and other flying mounts are a bit more difficult to acquire and therefore have an elitist appeal to them, but I like that about them as well.

To start us out what should, in theory, be the easiest of them is the “Time-lost Proto Drake”. A yellow and brown proto-drake with a cyan mouth. To get this mount all you have to do is track down and kill the level 80 rare spawn version of the same creature that flies around The Storm Peaks. The mount has a 100% chance to drop. Easy money? Not so much. The Time-lost Proto Drake is infamously difficult to track down due to its incredibly low spawn rates. Thankfully lot of research has been conducted relating to the TLPD’s flight paths, spawn rates, and the like but even armed with this information expect to spend weeks or even months camping out in the frigid mountains of The Storm Peaks for your chance to own this mount.

“Time lost indeed.”

My own personal quest to acquire this mount took me well over a month, although relatively little of that time was dedicated to 24 hour camping until towards the end. The Time-lost Proto Drake is essentially a rare spawn of a rare spawn – it’s more common variation being the rare blue dragon Vyragosa which I personally killed dozens of times before ever seeing even a hint of the TLPD’s existence. Because of all of the competition on my particular server (your mileage may vary) I found that sticking to one of the 4 confirmed spawn points was the best way to guarantee your chance to see and get first dibs on the creature. You’ll want to use an add-on such as “NPCScan” as well as do some reading at Ponderance’s TLPD Resource site.

The other proto-drake worth mentioning here is the Green Proto-Drake. The Green Proto-Drake has an attractive green and purple coloration with a fiery orange mouth – it’s quite striking, really. Additionally it is much easier to acquire than the TLPD though it can still be a bit painful. Make your way to the Sholazar Basin and visit the Oracles to kick off a fairly painless 8 day reputation grind to get to Revered and then purchase a Mysterious Egg from the Oracles Quartermaster for a few gold. The egg will hatch in your inventory after 3 days (recently lowered from a much more annoying 7 day timer) which will then produce a number of random prizes. Many of these prizes are companions, including the cool and potentially valuable Proto-Drake Whelp, and one, the rarest one of all, of course, is our mount.

“An… eggquisite… purchase.”

You’ll need a little luck to get the Green Proto-drake without purchasing more than a few eggs though if your luck isn’t so great you might end up with a veritable zoo worth of companions before ever getting the mount, but at least it doesn’t take much gold or work even if it does sometimes require a bit of patience. I believe my Green Proto-drake reins dropped after around 5 eggs though I’ve heard stories of it taking people months. My opinion? Worth it!

Finally we have an actual dragon as opposed to a proto-dragon, and an attractive one at that. The Red Drake mount can be acquired for a hefty sum of 1600gp by those who reach Exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord faction. Reaching Exalted reputation will require almost a month’s worth of running a few daily quests though if you don’t mind running dungeons you can also purchase a tabard once you reach Friendly that will give you Wyrmrest reputation gains in level 80 Northrend dungeons, speeding the process along fairly dramatically. Maybe it’s just me but I consider red dragons to be fairly iconic *flashbacks of the old Basic Dungeons & Dragons box set* and despite being relatively easy to obtain this is probably one of the better looking of the available drake mount colorations in my opinion – I prefer this one to the more commonly seen Bronze Drake mount. Normal drakes are also impressively large with massive wingspans compared to proto-drakes and other flying mounts. Everyone should definitely have at least one in their collections.

“I need a Wyrm Rest after grinding for this thing. *rimshot*”

Even though this is the “Northrend Edition” more or less I should give an honorable mention to Outland’s Nether Drake mounts. These bad boys can be obtained by reaching Exalted with Netherwing faction. This takes just over two weeks of running a fairly intense course of dailies and other quests but, time aside, should be a breeze at 80 or 85. You do require epic flight to complete this grind, however, making it fairly costly and unappealing for casual players who might not want to make the investment. I’ve never actually completed this reputation climb myself though it is a near future goal of mine.

Other honorable mentions:

The Bronze Drake is a 100% drop from beating a relatively easy boss in a heroic level 80 instance within a certain time frame. Although it was originally fairly challenging, these days not so much, particularly after Cataclysm. I’d think a group of 85s could farm this mount out very easily. The awesome looking Violet Proto-drake only requires you to complete every holiday achievement, most of which are soloable and quite easy to boot. “Only” however, doesn’t really take into account that we’re talking about taking an entire year to acquire. Still, if you’re patient enough…

That’s it for now. I may make another post in the future regarding the awesome new Elemental variety of drake mounts added to Cataclysm, of which some do indeed fall into the category of being relatively easy to obtain.

Shattered Memories

I started writing this on the eve of the release of Cataclysm, not too long after “The Shattering” has given Azeroth’s zones a face-lift. Some of these “classic” WoW zones have seen more drastic changes than others but all of them have at least seen minor changes and quest line overhauls. I planned on doing a few different articles about pre-shattered Azeroth but I procrastinated a bit too long and none of them really panned out. Instead of focusing in detail about any specific zone or change, inspired by two excellent podcasts I’ve been listening to recently (Postcards from the Old World and Warcraft Less Traveled) I thought it might be fun to briefly give my impressions about ALL of the old world zones my first character, still my main today, leveled through. Some of these early zones I also ran in beta, just to clear up some potential discrepancies.

“The logon screen from beta, advertising a place you can’t go until you buy the first expansion!”

Durotar was where my young Orc started his adventure and I’ve started here many other times on various other servers since. I always enjoyed ransacking Tiragarde Keep as slaughtering Alliance humans in a building straight out of Warcraft 3 after almost nothing but wildlife save a few trolls and centaurs always felt like a welcome progression to me. Cleaning out the cultists in Skull Rock, leading up to the eventual visit to Ragefire Chasm was a staple as well. Going after Fizzle Darkstorm in Thunder Ridge always felt like a challenging mini-adventure each time I leveled through the zone – I don’t recall having too much trouble with him as a Rogue but other classes I leveled here with had to come up with more inventive techniques without the benefit of stealth.

When I finally got to The Barrens it felt like the world finally opened up. This quickly turned from a positive to a negative as I ran all over the place questing. The Barrens has an infamous reputation for that so no need to dwell on that topic. That said I always enjoy the Crossroads and Ratchet and the zone had some decent quests as well. The Wailing Caverns was the first REAL dungeon I ran and I’ve still got a slight but undeniable soft spot for it. So called “Barrens Chat” wasn’t quite as out of hand in the beginning as it eventually ended up being but I feel like it deserves a mention as well. Quest wise, raiding Northwatch Hold and Bael Modan were some of my favorites, along with the Sludge Fens area.

I eventually ran through Mulgore to get to Thunderbluff, as quests demanded, and I always thought it was a beautiful zone. I didn’t have a Tauren for quite a while later so I never really leveled there back then but now I can say that it almost felt like a mini-Barrens to me – lots of open space, and running around therein to complete quests. Not a huge fan, but not bad. Thankfully the post-Shattering revamp has streamlined these quests a little bit and overall the zone retains its feel without being quite as painful – it feels like you’re out quicker to boot.

I ended up in Tirisfall Glades to visit the Undercity at some point as well. The main attraction here was eventually the Scarlet Monastery and much later, the entrance into the Western Plaguelands of course. I ran into Silverpine Forest a few times as well to help a few friends and the like. I always hated the long, narrow feel of the zone despite its cool aesthetic. I recall bumping into a Son of Arugal once when I was much higher level and being surprised when it started kicking my ass. I remember running Shadowfang Keep a couple of times back then with guildies and being intimidated by the fact that it felt like a real dungeon, even more so than the Wailing Caverns, and being a bit worried that I’d screw something up since I hadn’t done many instances or grouped much period.

Back to Kalimdor, I went from The Barrens to Stone Talon Mountains around the same time as other guildmates. Stone Talon had a fairly deserted feeling, much as it does today, with few people questing there. I really dug Windshear Crag at the time. I also remember helping a buddy complete the grindy feeling kill quests in the Charred Vale. Each time I’ve visited it since it has felt just the same – maybe a bit easier than before, but still very, very similar to the early days of classic. I’m quite curious about how much this place has been changed but I haven’t made it back here yet.

After that I distinctly remember heading directly into Desolace and spending a good amount of time there. I think a lot of my guildies must have headed elsewhere, because at first I was pretty much alone in the zone. Soon, as I began to wrap up in the southern Centaur areas (AKA “noob’s first rep grind”) they began to join me, and I had my first PVP experience. I did mention I was on a PVP server, didn’t I? During the centaur rep grind we started to see red names talking to some of the NPCs. It was only a matter of time before someone attacked – I don’t recall if it was them or us, but that doesn’t really matter in the end. This was, of course, only the first of hundreds of such PVP sessions but it was memorable and fun. World PVP really makes you appreciate being a rogue, I must say. Some of my favorite Desolace memories include the Naga quests on and around Ranazjar Isle as well as exploring the well hidden Shadowbreak Ravine back before it was populated with mobs or even had a name assigned to it.

I’m sure I visited Hillsbrand Foothills and the Alterac Mountains a few times around this time, speaking of PVP. I didn’t do much leveling here but the area around Tarren Mill was always such a hot bed for world PVP (AKA “ganking”) it was always an interesting place to visit. I also have fond memories of sloshing through the river, searching for and stealthing into Ravenholdt, and yeti hunting in the mountains. I would occasionally revisit Tarren Mill when exceedingly bored to PVP – even though I was a rogue I rarely ganked people without provocation but once you were on my hit list I would be fairly merciless. I’d fly in and stand just outside the town limits waiting for the almost inevitable Alliance player to come along and gank some seemingly innocent quester as they entered or left the town. I liked to play Sheriff and Tarren Mill definitely felt like a frontier town.

Back west, Ashenvale was a zone I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with. It’s a beautiful zone and is probably about the best place to experience Night Elf flavor as a member of the Horde. That said, on the Horde side the long, boring run (or flight) from West the East and vice versa and the long travel times involved in some of the quests made this place one I wasn’t too eager to return to. Now that this area has been “shattered” and lives up to its name a bit better, this may be vastly improved now.

“The Kodo Graveyard in Desolace.”

I ran back down south to Thousand Needles, a zone I had eagerly wanted to visit, tantalized by The Great Lift in the south of the Barrens. Not one of my favorite zones to quest in, but definitely unique and beautiful in its own way. The Shimmering Flats was a cool subzone despite its boring “kill x mobs” “collect x items” quests. It should be noted that I totally skipped Dustwallow Marsh though there wasn’t a whole lot of content there for the Horde at the time anyway. That was a zone that was vastly improved even before the Shattering.

I did run through the Deadwind Pass and visited the Swamp of Sorrows, however. I went there initially to grind for whelplings at Itharius’s Cave. I never did get a whelpling pet to drop but I grinded out an entire level or two here, and when I later came back to quest I already knew much of the zone rather well – definitely one that I have a soft spot for. I can’t wait to come back here to see how it has changed. While I’m in the area, I never did quest in The Blasted Lands. It was an intimidating area with few quests for the Horde… and I was very intimidated by the Dark Portal. It was sort of the icon of high level content – hell, it was our log in screen back then. In fact I never REALLY explored the zone until after Burning Crusade launched!

As most people did in classic, I spent way too long in Stranglethorne Vale. It felt like you could spend 10 levels or more questing in STV. It was also an insane hotbed for world PVP action. I recall being ganked there many, many times, as well as occasionally returning the favor. Naturally, Booty Bay was always an fun town to hang around because of this. My favorite areas of old STV were probably the northern Troll ruins and the southern Pirate camps.

Speaking of places with neutral cities and a ton of PVP, Tanaris was one of the most important zones in my main’s classic leveling career. I remember hitting what I perceived to be a lull in content at around the time I was questing in Tanaris and ended up spending several levels grinding pirates in and around Lost Rigger Cove. I claimed much of the main camp there and would chase off any Alliance who came to do more than their few quests, or who tried to interrupt me. There was a chest spawn that I became a master of tracking which eventually became the source of my first blue world drop. I also visited Feralas at some point but I don’t have much to say about it. I remember doing the robot chicken escort quest here 50 times, and I remember grinding for Golden Pearls in the naga cave on the Isle of Dread, but nothing too major stands out. The whole Isle of Dread no longer exists post-Shattering, interestingly enough.

I went on a brief visit to the Badlands, from one desert to another. There wasn’t a ton of quests here but it was worth the visit in my leveling treadmill. The main memory that sticks out in my mind is scanning the horizons for red names – it seemed like you could see enemy players for miles in a lot of the areas here, which means as a rogue I could make myself scarce rather easily… whether to avoid conflict or to setup my own ambush. I only briefly visited Searing Gorge and didn’t quest in Burning Steppes at all. Both zones seemed extremely uninviting and with only small quest hubs, didn’t seem worth the risk. It definitely did seem like a risk too… flying over the Burning Steppes and watching Volchan, an elite giant stomping around, was one of my first glimpses at the zone. It wasn’t until I later visited Blackrock Mountain that I came back to the area. I never really ran any of the Blackrock instances in classic, though I recall a failed expedition to infiltrate Blackrock Depths with 4 other rogues at some point to look for a specific drop for a guildmate of mine.

I also stopped back up north briefly, questing in The Hinterlands. Just as it is today, it was fairly empty back then, and just as it is today, Skulk Rock was a great place to farm for Ghost Mushrooms. (Yes, my main is a herbalist/alchemist.)

Un’Gore Crater was a zone I spent a fair amount of time in. I’m sure everyone remembers their first few encounters with the Devilsaur. I loved all of the wacky references here and I think I still have Linken’s Boomerang in my bank somewhere. There was a fair amount of ganking here at and around quest areas but I seem to recall being more worried about all of the dinosaurs and the damn Silithid in the area than other players. Speaking of Silithids, I never did, and even to this day still haven’t ever quested in Silithus. Back in the day it was rather barren, and I simply didn’t want to visit another damn desert zone. It was eventually improved more and more and I’d guess is now a worthwhile destination these days, provided you don’t have any kind of insect phobias of course.

Azshara was next, I believe. Cool zone. It was pretty empty at the time. Another guildy was here with me and I recall showing him the stranded crew of the Horizon Scout and their quests. The southern forest around the Ruined Reaches was one of my favorite wooded zones in the game for atmosphere alone. I was also always fascinated by Azshara Tower. A wizard tower high on a mountain that you can only get to via teleportation? Sign me up! This zone got radically, and I mean RADICALLY overhauled with Catacylsm and is intended to be the Goblin equivalent to the Barrens, level wise now.

Moving into Felwood and running through to Winterspring was a bit of an adventure at the time, and Winterspring was a zone that I hung around in for quite a while, grinding on Highborne spirits around Lake Kel Theril as well as in the various caves is a distinct memory that I retain from my main’s 50s. I’d probably rank Winterspring up there as one of my favorite classic zones at the time.

Finally, I headed over to the Western Plaguelands. Running around in the farms and the Ruins of Andorhal was a lot of fun. This was another time in which I both hooked up with some other guildies as well as spent a lot of time ducking and/or starting PVP. When I finally headed over to the Eastern Plaguelands PVP seemed even more encouraged thanks to the towers system and questing at/around the shared camp of Light’s Hope Chapel. Corin’s Crossing was real creepy and stuck with me and the northern area, Plaguewood, filled with its Ziggurats, was straight out of Warcraft 3. I eventually hit 60 by grinding on High Elves at the Quel’Lithien lodge of all things.

That’s my brief tour of the old world. Hope it brought up some memories for some of you who were there and raised a few questions from the (many) World of Warcraft players who joined well after classic.