I've recently started tackling with managed DX as a part of my force feedback experiments. I downloaded a sample app (link) which is supposed to send some simple FF effects to a device, problem is that it hangs upon startup and MSVS debugger is clueless about this.
It hangs and starts to eat 100% CPU after a DirectInputWrapper.Initialize() function is called. I wonder if there's something wrong with my machine as the problem seems to be outside the app itself. I should point out that I have very limited knowledge of C# and my DirectInput isn't much better, so I might be missing something elementary.

Can anybody take a look at this or at least try to run it to see of it hangs on other machines too? I used MSVS 2010 Express to build and debug this thing. (I attached the file if you don't have an account on codeproject.com)

The only thing that happens for me is that it tells me to install .NET Framework v4.0.30319.

Believe it or not, but this actually helped I changed the target from .NET 4.0 to 3.5 and it sprang to life (I could swear I tried that before, weird), let's hope it doesn't change its mind overnight.

Anytime mate, anytime.

Just as a sidenote, Managed DirectX is pretty much completely obsolete and has been discontinued by Microsoft years ago.

I'd recommend either using the XNA Framework or SlimDX for a modern take on DirectX via C#

I'm willing to give SlimDX a shot, I didn't really like the Managed DX approach anyway. Could you recommend some tutorials or documentation as to how to use DInput and force feedback in SlimDX? I found some about Direct3D and it seems to resemble the old fashioned C++ approach.
Damn, I might even start to like DX if it's any good

It's quite a while since I've done anything with SlimDX to be honest, so I'm not quite sure what the current state of development is and which tutorials/samples there might be, but let's see if there's anything I still remember...

First, of course, you probably want to check the included samples in the SDK - there might not be anything force-feedback related, but it should at least get you started on reading joystick (=wheel) states. The SDK documentation can also be found online.

Then there's also GameDev.net plus the accompanying forums, which should be a good starting point for any searches. A quick Google search also brought up this, which, while not talking about wheels per se, might give you a hint or two on how to approach FF in SlimDX.

Another bookmark I could dig up is this blog of SlimDX' lead developer, which isn't really a tutorial site but might still be an interesting read for anything SlimDX in general.

Most of the time Google will be your best bet to figure things out, and unfortunately more often than not DirectX tutorials will be written for C++, as historically there has just not been that much demand for DX in .NET in the past. However, since SlimDX is, as the name suggests, a rather slim wrapper around the native DirectX calls, most of that code and especially the general methodology on how-to-do-DirectX is very similar to what you'll end up writing in C#. As long as reading C++ doesn't make you convulse uncontrollably, translating from one to the other should be doable without too much pain.

Wow, thanks a megabunch for that. I originally planned to do this whole thing in C++ so I don't have a problem with that, I just figured why do it the hard way when there are high(ish) level wrappers for DX.
I'll dive into it and see how it goes, I'll definitely share the results if I manage to create something useful.