DirectX 8.1 DirectInput problem

I have Windows ME and DirectX 8.1:

When I tried running dxdiag, I got this message:

"Dxdiag has detected that there may have been a problem accessing DirectInput the last time this program was used. Do you wish to bypass DirectInput?"

If you click No, the diagnostic tool stops responding.
If you click Yes, you cannot click the Input tab without causing an error in dxdiag.exe.

We contacted Microsoft and they recommended we download 9.0b. but I don't want to do that yet. I also understand it takes forever with dialup anyway.

Any ideas on what this message means? And do you think it would cause a MS flight game to become jerky?

 

From another forum I found this that may help...

"But I found a solution! I noticed that the error occured in a file called dinput8.dll, which is placed in windows/system32 folder. I simply downloaded older version of that file (from www.dll-files.com if I remember right) and replaced it (I recommend to backup the original file before replacing). Works for me perfectly! "

If this doesn't help I suggest reinstalling v8.1 or upgrading to v9.0b or c.

 

Last night I tried running DX81ENG.exe. Please tell me if that the proper way to do a reinstall, because that did not fix the problem. If that was correct, then I need to try to download the dll file, but will wait for reply. Thanks so much.

 

So this DX81ENG.exe is the downloaded file?
If so, it may be corrupted, so suggest downloading again. I'd still suggest downloading v9.0b or the new 9.0c. If your dialup connection is reliable then let it run for 2-3 hours to complete the download.

Other than that other "possible" fix I posted, that's my lot!

 

Thanks Paul.

Just because I was also having other ongoing problems, I used the ME recovery disks I had to reload OS over itself - it apparently came with Directx 7. Then I used the driver disk I had to upgrade 7 to 8.0, then used the 81eng.exe to upgrade to 8.1. Everything works again - no error messages on dxdiag and game works fine (fingers crossed)

Someday I probably will download the 9.0 version when I have time to keep an eye on it. Again, Thanks for the help

 

Glad you fixed it!
Sometimes a reload over the top is easier than trying to pinpoint the problem. As DX is integrated in the OS, it was probably a corrupt/missing system file.