HidHide

Generally speaking, you should have little to no problems connecting an external device on Windows. While you can customize some of these peripherals here and there, having multiple devices connected also means you will need an efficient way to manage them.

HidHide is a lightweight utility that provides a reliable way to manage all peripherals, and it can be especially beneficial for anyone who wants to have more control over how apps interact with them.

The installation is simple and straightforward, but you will need to reboot your PC for the changes to take effect. The interface is rather rugged and consists of a small window where you can preview a list of applications and devices.

The application tab is where you can add and view programs that are white-listed and, therefore, allowed to interact with hidden devices. You are likely to see vendor-specific tools in this tab, but you can easily add and remove other apps you are using.

As expected, the devices tab is where you can view all the input devices connected to your computer. Since the tool is designed for multiple devices, it includes a few helpful filters, such as game only gadgets or showing tools that were previously connected to the PC.

HidHide might come in handy if you are regularly dealing with conflicts between devices that require both physical and virtual inputs. This is a common occurrence if you prefer to use various tools to customize controls and binds for games, such as vJoy and Joystick Gremlin, for instance.

In this particular situation, the app lets you hide devices from these apps and hence, it prevents them from receiving inputs. The result is that you can avoid conflicts as well as the multiple notifications that come with them. After all, nobody likes to get an error message when they are focused doing something while gaming.