http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21159
--- Comment #7 from Jörg Höhle hoehle@users.sourceforge.net 2010-11-11 11:46:03 CST --- I'm using a dinput.dll from w2k and it works fine with Wine's default (XP) setting. No need to switch to w98 mode.
The topic about how the dozen versions (from w95 to w7) of a dll behave differently has hardly been covered in the context of Wine, AppDB or mailing lists. It's likely hairy -- ready to enter "dll hell"?
I can confirm Ian's default console log. It's basically unchanged in 1.3.6 and gives no hint as to why built-in dinput doesn't work.