Review on Thrustmaster MFD Cougar Pack: Ultimate Windows Gaming Control Center by Jason Fanney

Not very good so far. Hoping to come back later and give more stars.1. The installation is my main problem. MDF only partially installed. They work fine in my Elite Dangerous game after tinkering around with Target a bit. But when they're not in-game, they switch every few seconds, just like when you install a device. The LEDs blink and I get the Windows sound associated with the new device. It is strange that they are OK in the game.2. The Target software looks painful - haven't tried making button assignments in the Target. Using ED options to map buttons. I hope to use the target for some sequence events later. But I won't try until the installation is fixed.3. The site is pretty weak. Has some basics but the FAQ shouldn't have a large database as I couldn't find a topic related to my question.4. Wrote a letter to tech support but don't expect a reply within a few days due to the Easter weekend. The nature of this support will shift the stars or keep them at 1.5. Very disappointing was that part of the LED backlight didn't hit the insert. You can print out decent ones via the site/target, but they're almost impossible to read if, like me, you want to play with a dim backlight. I've seen some people put in a photo display to make it very nice. If I stay true to the game and correct the setup I might go that route or add some LEDs to illuminate the inset.6. I'm still thinking about how I'm going to mount them - since Elite has been my only flying game in the last ten years, I'm still working on my cockpit. I use them with a Saitek 55.7 joystick/throttle. The software drivers that came with it seem to indicate it's 2009 technology - it makes me a little nervous that the install on my 8.1 machine will fix it and work with Win 10. Since they aren't working well at the moment, I'll probably add them on its a pre-release of Win 10. Customize it and see what the future may bring.8. Hopefully I'll have an update with more stars next week. I can definitely get a 4 if it works - the price might justify a 5 star rating IF my installation issues are resolved and I believe it works OK on Win 10. In operation, the only real downside would be the difficulty of reading the tags for each button and the expense of improving the visibility of those tags. With 50 keys I can't possibly remember all the tasks - at least I need a handy flashlight :) First update: 1. Tried it on Win 10 and encountered the same problem as on my 8.1.2 machine. Some internet research suggests that the problem could be Win 8.1 disconnecting USB devices when not in use. Tried to change this via properties in device manager - no luck.3. No response from tech support yet. Update: 1. Changed from 1 star to 3.2. Support response was very slow - two weeks before I got a reply. As a first answer, they wanted me to prove that I bought the product and a few questions.3. My problem is how win 8.1 and current build of win 10 handle usb devices and try to save power. Win 8.1 has an option to keep the power on all the time, but that didn't work - I didn't check my Win 10 build to see if they fixed it. The "solution" is to follow the Microsoft knowledge article and do a little regedit work. It's a little tricky to follow as I created about a dozen device instances that I plugged into all my USB ports to get them working. But the repair was successful. I'm not sure if I can post links to it here, but that's MS info.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2900614/en-us5. Why it took tech support two weeks to send me what appeared to be a standardized response was beyond me. So I called the technical support hotline. They couldn't answer my problem (man who doesn't know work that day) but I got a bad answer due to the holidays and high tech support due to some recent innovations. My call was answered fairly quickly but it doesn't look like the person who answered the call could fix any problem. TARGET's button customization software proved too confusing for my simple mind. I've been lucky so far, the game I'm playing allows me to customize the buttons. I would like to have some buttons that do multiple steps - I need to learn the TARGET software to make this possible.7. Poor support, the fact that I had to find a solution on the site, and the difficulty of using the TARGET software account for 3 stars - the product itself has 4 or higher.8. I bought a USB monitor that serves as a backlight for two MFPs. I have images that I created to assign to buttons on this screen. Update: Win 10 Build 10532 - This build finished the regedit job I did to get it working. Let's get back to blinking. There is nothing on the Thrustmaster site - they have stopped support - don't expect them to ever provide a driver. Find another product - don't buy these - fine, but what a huge headache. Now I'm looking for a replacement - a now and never a Thrustmaster product. Update: Win 10 - did a clean install of Windows 10 on my computer. Would give 5 stars now - but it was such a pain I won't do it - but happy days are here again :) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FE690DI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc =1 - This is the USB monitor I installed my MFP on. I created an image in Photoshop that I'm using as a background for this monitor. I created an image from the Thrustmaster software that I found on their website. Update: Win 10 Update - Nov 2015 - The smile is gone. The Stars Are Gone - Let's get back to the blinking and beeping. Still works fine once I start my game but beeping and flashing every second when I'm not in game is a real killer. Searched diligently for a replacement product, but without success. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Update: Went back to the Thrustmaster website and reinstalled the February 2015 software. Back no peep - no blink - all smiles. I hope it says so! The link should lead to a software download. http://ts.thrustmaster.com/eng/index.php?pg=view_files&gid=1&fid=3&pid=298&cid=1