We all know it’s quite possibly- and actually fairly easy – to use an Xbox 360 controller with your PC. It’s really just a matter of plugging it in, and downloading a few drivers from Microsoft. What many of you might not know is that you can actually take things a step further- you can use your controller as a mouse and keyboard array, as well. It’s pretty simple.

There are a few reasons someone might want to do this. Not every game supports the Xbox 360 controller, after all, and someone who feels they can get more control (or simply likes having a controller in their hand when they play shooters) might eschew a mouse and keyboard setup. Whatever the reason, the process is fairly simple – all you need is a bit of extra software.

I can’t recall, but I believe we’ve been over the first few steps before. Even so, it couldn’t hurt to have a bit of a refresher: First off, you’ll need an Xbox 360 controller- either a wired controller, or a Wireless if you’ve got an additional USB gadget on hand. Go to Microsoft’s driver downloads page to download the Xbox 360 drivers. Install them, and plug in the controller.

Next up, you’ll want to download a handy little piece of software known as Xpadder. You’ll have to pay a one-time fee of $10, unfortunately. The software’s not available for free. Open source alternatives exist, as well. Anyway, assuming you’ve downloaded Xpadder, all you need to do is open up and extract the zip file (download 7Zip for this, if you don’t already have it).  Open up Xpadder.exe once you’ve done that.

From here, it’s a pretty simple matter of calibrating the program to run with your 360 controller. You should be able to figure out this part on your own, truth be told. Enjoy your new setup!

Like what you read?

If so, please join over 28,000 people who receive our exclusive weekly newsletter and computer tips, and get FREE COPIES of 5 eBooks we created, as our gift to you for subscribing. Just enter your name and email below: