Back to the original issue. I'm a little confused about this statement from you. " I have mapped the zoom to Twist by typically as single button on throttle"
Did you have the zoom mapped to the twisty on your stick? If you did you need to remove it, that could be the issue. Another thing is to go through your stick and throttle mapping and make sure you don't have "zoom toggle" assigned to something other than the button you want to use for zoom.
I would also quit looking at windows as being the issue, on your CH stick not working, unless you did a custom windows install. More likely it's a hardware or operator problem. Are you using a usb hub? If so try plugging the stick directly into the pc. Also don't look in the game controllers in windows, look at the controller mapping within AH, double press the trigger and see if you get the assignment window pop-up. If you do then AH sees the stick. As I said before, you don't have to use the CH software to use the stick in AH, and I would uninstall it if it is on your computer until you get the stick working. Then if you think you need it install it.