Ever since Microsoft announced their biometric authentication program for Windows 10 people immediately asked about using the Kinect sensor. After all, Kinect already uses your face to sign you into the Xbox One making it patient zero of the Windows Hello paradigm.
Unfortunately, for those using Kinect and Kinect for Windows there was no way to use the hardware for Windows Hello. All of that is changing as Microsoft has finally created a beta driver that lets Windows 10 use Kinect for Windows v2 and Kinect for Xbox One use Windows Hello. The news came through an email to developers of Kinect who are part of the SDK and testing program where they announced the 'public preview of Kinect support for Windows 10'. For now, you need to do some registry digging and hacking to let the OS download the new beta drivers for the feature.
Dec 7, 2015 - New drivers enables developers to install the Xbox One Kinect right up to their Windows 10 PC. You can also use it for Windows Hello to log.
![Drivers Drivers](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125618595/865772920.jpg)
Microsoft and they are relatively short and sweet. Once your PC has grabbed the driver you can read our tutorial on setting up Windows Hello for Windows 10: It should be noted that if you are using your Kinect for Xbox One with your PC you do need to pick up a $50 cable and have it plugged into a USB 3.0 port (due to the power and bandwidth requirements). Alternatively, you can go all in for $199 and pick up the Kinect for Windows v2. That's about $100 more than the hard to acquire and, which is the only alternative third-party Windows Hello option at this time. (Note: Kinect for the Xbox 360 does not appear to be supported, sorry). Needless to say this is a rather cool development and you have a spare Kinect laying around or want to rig your PC battle station to use this feature, now is your chance.
Being the drivers are in development, there could be some hiccups, but Hello has come along quite a bit since the summertime.
Trying to use my Kinect 2 (aka XBox One Kinect) with Windows 10 PC as a living room microphone. I have it hooked up using the official PC adapter, and it works pretty good - when I have the Windows Speech app open (sapisvr.exe -SpeechUX). However, if I close out of Windows Speech app and try to use it as a normal mic, I run into problems with it (appears that volume may not be getting picked up). It doesn't appear to pick up any sound at all in other apps such as Steam chat (direct chat outside of game), VoiceAttack, Windows Voice Recorder, and most importantly for me - the microphone setup (Settings Time & Lang Speech Get Started button) and WSR Speech Trainer dialogs (Control Panel Ease of Access Speech Recog Take Speech Tutorial). I think I can rule out any physical issues, because - as I mentioned above - it works under WSR app. I've tried a few things (including quite a bit of googling) but haven't had any luck so far. Wanted to check if anybody might have any ideas?
To speed things up:. I have it plugged into the PC adapter, using a USB3 cable, and plugged into USB3 port on mobo.
I am approx. 10ft away from mic normally. This doesn't seem to bother it much if at all when using it with WSR. I have tried going closer (tried at both 6ft and 3ft range) and doesn't seem to make any difference. I am not running any video/background music/etc. Room I am in is very quiet.
Even muted speakers for testing. Settings Devices Connected Devices show it as 'Kinect, connected to USB 3.0'. I have most all my privacy settings turned off (my understanding is that this is for metro apps anyway). Regardless, I have the microphone setting on and 'Xbox' + 'Windows Voice Recorder' apps on as well. If I go to Control Panel Hardware Sound Recording tab, I do see 'Microphone Array, Xbox NUI Sensor'.
It is marked as a 'Default' Device'. Sometimes I will see it pick up my voice on bars here for 2-3 seconds when I first switch to the tab. Other times (or after the 3 sec), I can talk all day and then bar doesn't move at all.
In Properties for the above device: Levels tab is at 100. It doesn't give me any other options like boost, etc. Advanced tab, has both checkmarks under 'Exclusive mode' checked. I have tried opening Volume Mixer by clicking on the sound icon in systray. But I haven't been able to figure out how (if?) I can show recording devices here under Windows 10. I have tried with and without Kinect 2.0 SDK installed; no difference.
Device Manager shows 'Kinect sensor devices WDF KinectSensor Interface 0'. There are no error/warning symbols by it. Also, here are my h/w specs in case it becomes relevant. I updated the drivers for mobo & graphics last night to make sure they were complaint with Win10. CPU = AMD FX-9590.
M/B = GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5. RAM = G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB). OS HDD = SAMSUNG 840 Series, 120GB SSD. OS = Windows 10 (upgraded from Windows 7). Graphics = MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4G. I am outputting the video to a cheap 50in LG TV over hdmi.
I tried several other things: 1. Turned off/unchecked both of the 'exclusive' option Control Panel Hardware Sound Recording tab 'Microphone Array, Xbox NUI Sensor' Properties Advanced. Installed 'Voice Finger' app which works with WSR. Shortly after I installed this, I did see it picking up my mic in control panel dialog but stopped working few seconds later.
Moved cable around and tried it in my other 2 USB 3.0 slots. Stopped leaving PC in sleep mode, doing full shutdown/start-up now. – Dec 3 '15 at 1:09. Based on this: I noticed in Power Options it had 'USB selective suspend setting' as Enabled.
Going to try setting to disabled and see if that makes a difference. Thinking it could be cutting usb pow after inactivity and then software just doesn't pick it back up.
![Kinect For Windows Drivers Windows 10 Kinect For Windows Drivers Windows 10](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125618595/440062111.png)
Will try that and if it's a bust, then I'll put Win10 on my laptop and try there. Only thing I can think of past that is going nuclear and doing a clean install of Win10. Will try to report back so that I don't become somebody else's DenverCoder9 :-) – Dec 3 '15 at 1:15.