I just had to reinstall Windows7 and ended up with the same issue even though I had no problems in the prior install with the HOTAS working. After finding and reading through this thread none of the recommendations worked likewise. However I was able to resolve the issue this way.
Check your device manager to see what state the Hotas drivers are in...on my system the drivers where not being recognized. I do recall when I installed the HOTAS in the past, I would be prompted twice for the device drivers to load...this has not happened on my current install....even though the install software detects the cougar when I plug it in to complete the install.
Anyway, in your device manager, under each HOTAS device, right click and choose to update the driver. Then choose to search for the driver and proceed. As to where to search, in my case I pointed the search to scan the whole drive...luckily it found it. I repeated this for the IN and the OUT and whalla...after drivers where found and loaded, the control panel worked and I now have the HOTAS back...I hope this works for you as well.
PS...the driver install used was the 2007_HCO_VISTA_64_RC1...found on thrustmaster website.
