Short story: got a new HDD today & reinstalled XP .. forgot to save the joystick files

Anyway, I've been into a "reinstall evening" and all seems to work fine but this:
I used to have most of my setup butons assigned to keyboard keys (uncheck the DX device in
CHCtlMgr). I applied the mapping to the HOTAS, the devices & DX buttons show alright, but it don't seem to use/accept the keyboard strokes (nothing appear if I try it in a txt document)... what have I done wrong ?

Tried clearing everything, reassigning devices, applying the setup, activate the mapping, nits, nada, null. help!