I have ALWAYS been dissapointed with Thrustmaster, having gone thru the F16TLS and the Cougar. Before that, I had that little stick from them - I forget what that was called. And I actually believe I had another stick from them too, based on the F15 maybe? Now the problem? Reinstalled Windows 7 64 and it wouldn't see the RCS. It saw the stick & throttle just fine, but no RCS. Now, after several HCO reinstalls, Windows just doesn't see anything. I'm sure it's a software problem. I've had this happen several times before. Point is really -I am soooooo tired of dealing with the BS! Really, there are no official W7 drivers for the cougar? As much as Iove the quality of the hardware, the software just really sucks a$$.. As much as I want the A10 stick & the F1 setup, Thrustmaster's past history with me really doesn't justify nearly at all a $1K investment. Which sucks, because hardware-wise, they really make some beautiful things. Looking to a Saitek X65, or see what CH is doing lately. I just can't see spending anymore $ at Thrustmaster for crappy after purchase support.

.....and if you add in the fact they havent even made rudders for their sticks in almost 20 years, at some point you just have to say, WTF? I actually emailed their CS once, it was in between the first two production runs of the Cougar (around the Gullimont transition, I think). I got a reply back 3 weeks later saying (paraphrase) "at this time the Couat is no longer being supported, sorry. Please refer to our online forum for a possible solution for your problem.". Creative Labs, BTW, is equally bad (& good) IMO

Did you remember to reselect the proper axes to allow your rudders to be seen? (in Hotas cougar control panel).

Remember, only the first 8 axes can be seen by the OS.

Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately, the Cougar is the only controller there and it only has 6 axis, including the rudder. I know if I dick around with it for another 6 hours, I'll figure it out. But after almost 10 years, I'm starting to ask myself, "why bother?" Like I said -this is far from the first time I've had trouble trying to reinstall this stick. Honestly, just sick of it. It shouldn't be this hard. It's not 1996 anymore, Thuratmaster.

The Cougar has 10 axes, but DirectX will only recognize 8, which is why you need to map the ones you want to the first 8 in hotas cougar control panel.


Stealing an image from someone's review of something here on SHQ, but it should serve to illustrate what I'm talking about.



I too have spent hours getting Cougar installations right, and share your frustration. However, while it may not be 1996 anymore, part of the limitation is DirectX, which TM has no control over. Further, the Cougar is 10 years old and was specifically built to require certain software configurations (ie with the CCP above). There really isn't an easy way to replace that software, nobody's going to put that much effort into a discontinued product.

You can certainly use the new software (TARGET) to run your Cougar, but you'd need to rewrite your profiles for it, and you'd still need to get that HCCP set appropriately. Nothing TM can do will override the DirectX limitation.

Huh, my Cougar never had any problems picking up the RCS...and yes, I am running Win7 64-bit.

You did make sure to run the driver installer set to Vista compatibility mode, right? Otherwise, it won't work properly.

Thanks for all the great tips! I had to work today, but I'll give it another shot tonight, thanks again! Frustrated!

uhhh, I forgot! Now the problem is the Cougar isn't recognized!

Even when plugging it into another USB port?

Hmmm. I'm just outside Milwaukee (New Berlin)

I could potentially be talked into making a house call to see what's up.