@Magus said:
Okay, yeah, the first must be true, given the second.
The problem started when Microsoft changed the way power over USB works with enhanced power management, which the PS3 controller cannot accept at a hardware level. (It needs to get fed power over USB to switch into signal-over-USB mode, or it'll keep trying to communicate via Bluetooth.)
That means Windows is to blame, as in; is the cause of the problem, where there were none before.
While Microsoft had atleast the foresight to include a per-device switch for the behavior, they've been their typical dingus self in screwing it up by making it opt-out rather than opt-in. The fact that it's opt-out means that you now need updated device drivers to include the opt-out instruction.
In this particular case, it's hard to get hold of a driver that does so, because the vendor itself doesn't officially support use of the controller on Windows. You have to use third-party drivers, some of which are of extremely dubious quality (:: cough :: MotionInJoy :: cough ::) and/or have been discontinued.
Get it now?