joystick problems with joy.cpl

I'm using a microsoft Sidewinder force feedback 2 joystick, and am unable to record functions to the buttons. I get this warning when I try: RUNDLL: An exception occurred while trying to run "Shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL joy.cpl" Have turned off System Restore, uninstalled the joystick software, rebooted, reinstalled to no effect. Have tried to delete the file c:\windows\system32\joy.cpl to see if the reinstall would work afterwards, but got the same symptoms. This is on a new computer, less than a week old, have installed some Microsoft Office software, the game Pacific Fighters, and the game Thief. Am doing the automatic Windows updates, and get a warning there as well that it was unable to complete an install. There are no Microsoft updates available for the joystick software.

not sure whats going on.. possibly update your chipset drivers if this is a new pc.. I did read that another person had this issue and was able to assign keys in safemode as a work around