xp & sidewinder controllers

[curtisjs]

I have a client who wants to use some of his microsoft Sidewinde
Freestyle
Pro controllers (USB) with XP. Although the devices auto detected ok
I
cannot assign keyboard buttons to the controller buttons using onl
the
usual Game Controller app in Control Panels. It appears that this ca
be
done with version 4.0 of the MS Sidwinder Game Controller software, bu
I
can't find this to download anywhere, and from what I read about it
it
seems to only work with a small fraction of the MS controlle
hardware.

Is this the case, and is there any workaround to use custom button
assignments or profiles with these MS Sidewinder devices? Thanks.

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

The 4.0 software was written in several packages, all of them distributed on
CD, and each was designed for keymapping on a single device. The 3.0 devices
such as yours have keymapping software but it was written as a vxd which
isn't supported on NT systems. The controllers can still be used however
they will have to rely on in-game keymapping ability. You might be able to
find a generic keymapping utility out there, but I haven't looked for or
seen one myself.

Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft