How to Use Your Wii Remote on Your PC As a Game Controller and More

Hello! If you would like to know how to connect your Wii Remote to your PC, you have come to the right place. By the end of this guide, you will be able to:

Use your Wii Remote as a game controller.
Use your Wii Remote as a mouse
Create your own custom keybindings for your Wii Remote. (As long as it uses the keyboard and mouse, it can be mapped to the Wii Remote)

But before we get into the details of doing so, here are some materials that you will need before we get started.

You will need:

A Nintendo Wii Remote. (I am using an older model that does not have the Plus in it, however if you have a newer one it should still work)
A PC that has a Bluetooth adapter. (If your PC does not have a built-in Bluetooth adapter, you can buy an external one from Amazon.)
A few free programs for the Wii Remote that will be discussed in detail later.

A few warnings to consider: This guide is written for those who have PCs only. If you have a Mac or other operating system, this guide will is not for you. The instructions and pictures will be specifically for Windows 10, since that is the operating system I am running. Older versions can attempt to follow along, however there is no guarantee that the process I go through will be the same as yours.

Step 1: Downloading the Wii Remote Drivers

If you were to try to connect your Wii Remote now to your PC, you would find that Microsoft will install the wrong drivers for it. Thankfully, a game developer by the name of Julian Löhr created his own drivers to allow PC's to recognize the Wii Remote. You can find his website here: https://www.julianloehr.de/

Depending on your system, you will need to either download the Windows 64-bit version or 32-bit version.

64-Bit Version:

https://www.julianloehr.de/hid-wiimote/gamepad/0.2...

32-Bit Version:

https://www.julianloehr.de/hid-wiimote/gamepad/0.2...

Note that both downloads will be in a zip file, so create a folder to hold the files.

If you have a 64-bit version of Windows and/or receive an error when trying to connect your Wii Remote, move on to the next step. Otherwise, the next step may be skipped.

Step 2: Disabling Driver Signature Enforcement

NOTE: This step can be skipped if you do not have Windows 64-bit or do not receive the driver signature error.

Because this driver was not made by Microsoft, your PC will not recognize it. In order to bypass this, we will need to disable driver signature enforcement.

1. In the Windows search bar, search "recovery" without the quotes and select "Recovery options".

2. Click "Restart Now" (NOTE: If you click this button, your PC WILL restart at that instant, so be sure to remember the next steps.)

3. After restarting, click the "Troubleshoot" button -> "Advanced Options" -> "Startup Settings".

4. Click "Restart" and when prompted press the key "7" to "Disable driver signature enforcement".

Now, your Windows will seem to start and run normally, the only difference now is that driver signature is disabled, meaning we can now use our drivers that we downloaded, until we restart our computer. We can now move on to the next step.

Things to note:

A restart will cause your Windows to run normally again, so if you would like driver signatures to be enforced again, a restart will do the trick
Every time you would like to connect your Wii Remote, you will have to do this whole process again. If you would like to disable driver signature enforcement permanently, you can do so by following the steps below.

For PERMANENT disabling of driver signatures, you do the following:

1. Open the Windows Command Prompt. (Search CMD in the bottom left Windows Search Bar)

2. Type the following:

Bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON

3. Press enter and restart your computer.

Step 3: Connecting Your Wii Remote to Your PC

So, with the drivers all downloaded and your PC off of driver signature enforcement (for 64-bit only), now all we need to do is connect your Wii Remote to your PC!

1. Run the "TinyInstaller.exe" to install the actual driver. Note: Admin rights are needed to run this program.

2. Afterwards, check in your programs and features to see if the driver installed correctly. Check to see if the program shows up in the list as shown in the picture above. (Search "program and features" in the Windows search bar) Note: If you ever want to uninstall this driver, you can do so here.

3. Locate your Bluetooth settings (can be found by searching "Bluetooth" in the windows search bar)

4. Turn on your Bluetooth and keep this window open.

5. Turn your Wii Remote over and click the red sync button.

6. Look back onto the Bluetooth window and look for a device called "Nintendo RVL-CNT-01" to pair with. (Note: At first it may appear to be named as "Input device". After a few seconds, its name will change into Nintendo RVL-CNT-01.)

7. If prompted for a passcode, click next without typing any numbers, then cancel. The Wii Remote should connect afterwards.

8. Take a look at your Wii Remote. If the lights look similar to the picture above, then your Wii Remote is successfully paired! If it does not have lights and it says it is paired in the Bluetooth settings, remove the device from the Bluetooth setting and try connecting it again.

Step 4: Getting Your Wii Remote to Work As a Game Controller

Now that our Wii Remote is connected to our PC, lets use another program to map out the Wii Remote inputs as keyboard inputs so that it will work PC games.

1. Download the free version of JoyToKey:

http://download.cnet.com/JoyToKey/3000-2094_4-7522...

2. Download my Wii Remote profile here:

https://www.mediafire.com/?o6mw78i2f509ljz

3. After downloading my profile, place it in the same location as the JoyToKey program.

4. Open JoyToKey. You will see on the left column a profile called Wii Remote Game. If you do not, make sure that the .cfg file you downloaded from me is in the same location as the JoyToKey program, and reopen JoyToKey.

5. The profile I provided is a basic template for providing your own inputs. You can see on the right column I did the basic Up, Down, Left, Right arrows, corresponding to their respective arrows on the keyboard. The other buttons I left blank, for you to decide.

6. Lets say a game requires you to jump with the "Z" key, and we want to jump by pressing "1". Double click the row named Button1.

7. Make sure you are in the "Keyboard" tab, and click on the first "Disabled" rectangle you see. It should highlight yellow, meaning you can now do any input on your keyboard and it will map to whatever button you chose, in this case it was "1". Type Z, and you should see Z show up in the box.

8. Change the other buttons (1,2,+,-,A,B) to those that match your game settings.

9. After minimizing JoyToKey, the inputs should work. You can test this out by seeing if the inputs you put in are typed out in a notepad or web browser. (Note: The up, down, left, right arrows are inputted as if you are holding the Wii Remote horizontally, with the Dpad on the left side and 1,2 buttons on the right.)

Step 5: Using Your Wii Remote As a Mouse and Beyond

So we have our Wii Remote formatted to be used as a game controller. What if we wanted to use it as a mouse?

1. Download my Wii Remote Mouse Profile here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ucy4nuz3z4v8wsa/

2. Place it in the JoyToKey folder.

3. Run the JoyToKey program. (Note: If the program is already open and you move the file in the same folder, it will not update until you restart the program.)

4. On the left column, select the "Wii Remote Mouse". (Note: Left clicking the profile name will change between profiles after minimizing JoyToKey).

5. Minimize the JoyToKey program. You should be able to use the Wii Remote as a mouse now! Hold it like you would hold a TV remote, and use the DPad to move the mouse up and down, the A button to left click, B button to right click, and Minus button to Alt+Tab. This profile is very basic. You can add more to it and tweak it to your liking by changing the settings.

6. Open JoyToKey and double click on any of the functions that control the mouse movement.

7. From the top left, the slider determines left and right movement of the mouse. So sliding it to the left will make the mouse move left, and if you slide it far left the mouse will move far to the left when pressing the left Wii Remote button. Similarly, the vertical column determines up and down movement of the mouse. Below you can see mouse clicks, such as left click and right click. Any of these can be mapped to the Wii Remote. The rest of the settings are up to you to explore and experiment!