Solved HELP windows 8/8.1 will not recognise xbox 360 as a device

Hi, I have a very frustrating problem. I have a sony vaio pro laptop, originally running windows 8 but just updated to windows 8.1. However, this problem was the same when I had windows 8 so updating to 8.1 has not changed anything.
I cannot add my xbox 360 wirelessly as a device to my vaio laptop. I want to be able to stream videos etc from laptop to xbox. When I go to Change PC settings>Devices>Add device the computer searches but will not find the xbox, despite it being switched on and connected to the wireless network.

The really frustrating thing is that I have another laptop running windows 8, now updated to 8.1, and it connects with the xbox with no problems whatsoever. As soon as I click 'add a device' on this laptop the xbox is found and I can connect to it/stream content with no problems.

I have tried disabling the firewall on my vaio laptop, still didn't work. I have ensured sharing etc is turned on on both the laptop and the xbox. I have scoured the internet for solutions for 2 days now and still haven't found a fix. If someone could suggest a solution to this I would be so grateful!!

I finally discovered a fix for this today! In case anyone else has this problem:

The problem was that my router is dual band and my laptop was connected to the 5ghz band, whereas the xbox 360 was connected to the 2.4 ghz band. I didn't realise that this would prevent devices communicating via the network as it is the same router after all, but apparently this is the case.


To fix the problem, I went into my router settings and changed the name of the 5ghz band to something llike 'my5ghz'. This means that when any device tries to connect to my router there are 2 options to connect (2.4ghz and 5ghz bands). My xbox was able to recognise the new 'my5ghz' network and connect, and so my laptop and xbox were connected via the same band. Immediately my laptop was able to recognise the xbox 360 as a device on the network, and I am now streaming video/music to it with no problems whatsoever!

mwilson87 said:

I finally discovered a fix for this today! In case anyone else has this problem:

The problem was that my router is dual band and my laptop was connected to the 5ghz band, whereas the xbox 360 was connected to the 2.4 ghz band. I didn't realise that this would prevent devices communicating via the network as it is the same router after all, but apparently this is the case.


To fix the problem, I went into my router settings and changed the name of the 5ghz band to something llike 'my5ghz'. This means that when any device tries to connect to my router there are 2 options to connect (2.4ghz and 5ghz bands). My xbox was able to recognise the new 'my5ghz' network and connect, and so my laptop and xbox were connected via the same band. Immediately my laptop was able to recognise the xbox 360 as a device on the network, and I am now streaming video/music to it with no problems whatsoever!

Click to expand...

Hi

Thought this would have solved my problem as I was having the same problem. However, on checking, my router (Linksys wrt54G) is not dual band. Also noted that the surface cannot see my wireless laptop or wireless printer. Any help would be appreciated.

Regards

BillyBoy

You may have already tried this, but on your desktop go to File Explorer, then right click on Homegroup on the right hand side. Select Change Homegroup Settings. You will see there is an option 'Allow all devices on this network such as TVs and game consoles to play my shared content'. When you click on that, do you see your Xbox 360 in the list of devices? And if so is sharing 'allowed'?

Thanks mwilson87. All's well with my desktop PC which has a wired connection to my router as I was just able to "Play to" the Xbox. (Didn't even know that facility existed under Win 7). Since your original post I noticed that my wireless laptop cannot see the Xbox or even the Surface and the Surface cannot see the laptop or printer. Seems to be a router problem me thinks!!!