IL-2 doesn't detect my joystick

[Tomahawk]

I've been using a good old reliable sidewinder precision 2 joystick for quite a long time by now and never had problems with it, but after I woke up today and started playing IL-2 this morning, the game suddenly stopped knowing of the existance of the joystick that it's been interracting with for years. I reinstalled the device with the disc that came with package of the joystick, so I believe the problem is within the game. Kinda annoying, because just recently I've begun to really get interested to play this game again after a long while. Please help.

I dunno if it matters, but I got Windows Vista and IL-2 1946.