How to make a joystick axis completely undetectable in Windows 7?

I have an old Saitek ST290 Pro USB joystick and I only have one problem: some games such as Jane's F-15 or F/A-18, will detect the stick's terrible, godawful throttle control, which is built into the controller, placed underneath my arm, and then, in a display of some developers' infinite genius, require me to use it without giving me any option to disable it, often going as far as to disable in-game throttle on other controllers such as my keyboard.

For those wondering, this is the joystick, the paddle/lever on the back is the throttle:

All I need is for this throttle control to be completely undetected by Windows 7 or my games, as if it does not exist. I would especially appreciate something I could apply to "any" controller or joystick though I'll take a solution specific to my Joystick if I must.

Suggestions I have tried which I can remember off of the top of my head:

• Generic Joystick Driver: I can't seem to find any for Windows 7 that aren't viruses/malware. I do have my computer set up to load unsigned drivers, such as XBCD.

• PPJoy: doesn't detect my joystick, and it's not parallel port anyway

• Use Joy2Key to map throttle to certain keypresses: Works only for a few games. Usual result is the throttle axis does absolutely nothing while the controls that are normally mapped to the throttle are completely disabled (in Jane's F-15 I'll have no throttle control whatsoever).

• Saitek's Joystick Profiler: no way of disabling an axis and all ways I have tried to manipulate the throttle axis (I can't remember the specifics) have had detrimental or no effect.

• Open the joystick and cut the cord to the throttle: throttle is detected but obviously does nothing because the wires to it are cut...

• Rewire the throttle to something like a thumb-dial or slider that is more accessible/practical to use: my electronics expertise peaked at putting the cords back together after doing the above.

• Buy a better joystick: no, I don't have that kind of money, I can't buy online anyway, and all joysticks I can find in local stores exhibit this exact same kind of throttle (under the arm) and so would lead me to this exact same problem.

Solution 1:

You can use the program Universal Joystick Remapper (UJR) which is a script for AutoHotkey that works with vJoy (a newer fork of PPJoy) to allow remapping and disabling of joystick functions.

To use it you must download UJR and vJoy which I have hyperlinked the pages of here. UJR already has AutoHotkey built in so you do not need to download it separately.

After you download the files unzip the ujr.zip file wherever you wish to keep it. Make sure you open the README.txt file and follow the instructions carefully to set up your stick. However since you wish to ignore the slider, just don't set it up when you configure vJoy as step 2 of the 'Installation Instructions' covered in the readme file. See attached screenshot for what I'm referring to (Your button, hat, and axis count will differ obviously).

The readme should cover any questions you have about setup, but if you need any clarification I'd be glad to help in the comments.

EDIT:

I thought I should explain what vJoy is after rereading the previous responses. vJoy is actually a virtual joystick driver that can be customized by feeding it input from another program. Therefore it is the low level custom driver other people were saying you needed. As a result this should work for any program/game that supports a joystick and you can create multiple virtual joysticks (or UJR configs) if you need to disable different axes/sliders for different games that don't have a good in game config.

Additionally with UJR you can tweak things like sensitivity and deadzones which is pretty handy with some older or more worn out joysticks if you don't want to do a physical modification (ex. increasing spring tension on a loose stick).