Solved: DualSense phantom Down input / broken Windows UI navigation

[tb0mb]

Solved: My DualSense had a constant phantom Down input when navigating the Windows UI, despite gamepad testers showing normal stick values.

The cause was a stale explicit GameInput override:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GameInput\Devices\054C0CE600010005
054C0CE600010005 ← Sony DualSense

Microsoft documents these Control\GameInput\Devices entries as device-specific GameInput mappings that can take precedence over default mappings. Interestingly, the affected PC also had similar mappings for Xbox, PS3 and Switch Pro controllers, all using essentially the same generic Gamepad mapping.

I don't know what software originally created these mappings, so I can't attribute them to DS4Windows or PadForge. But deleting the stale DualSense override definitively fixed the problem on my machine. After backing up and deleting that key and rebooting, the phantom Down input disappeared while native DualSense Windows UI navigation continued to work normally. The key did not regenerate. A clean comparison PC using the same controller and GameInput version did not have these explicit controller overrides.

So, at least in my case, the fix was simply:
Delete all subkeys under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GameInput\Devices and reboot.

Sharing for others, I've found a few places mentioning this or similar problem with no solution.

NOW finally to gaming!! Thank you @hifihedgehog for the amazing software!

[eVenent]

Thank you! Finally no issues.