I have an Arduino Uno R3, Wireless Proto Shield and a XBee XB24-AWI-001 all hooked together. I'm using X-CTU software to access the XBee and change the properties of it. I did a little research and found out that if I want to access the XBee, I have to connect the GND to the RST pin (on the Proto Shield) or hold the RESET button on the board. This method works and when I do that, I can find the XBee on X-CTU.

The question is - why do I have to do that? I'm probably wrong, but as far as I understand, if I have my Arduino connected to the computer, I'm accessing the ATmega microprocessor and that's the reason I can't access the XBee, but when I do the reset, I'm constantly resetting the microcontroller and that's the reason why I can access the XBee? Hopefully someone can explain this...