Install FFB-Bridge

FFB-Bridge ships as a self-contained Windows installer and a Linux AppImage. Both bundle the .NET 10 runtime. There is no driver to download; your Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 already works at the HID level on any modern Windows or Linux kernel.

Before you start

You'll need:

A Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick (USB VID 045E, PID 001B). The bridge is currently hardcoded to this specific stick.
A supported simulator: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, X-Plane 11, or X-Plane 12. MSFS 2020 is untested. DCS, Prepar3D and earlier Flight Simulators are not supported.
Windows 10 (version 1809 or newer) or any modern Linux distribution with evdev — which is essentially every mainstream desktop distro.

Windows Installer

Download

After you sign up on the home page, we email you a tokenised download link. Click the Windows installer link to save FfbBridge-Setup-x64.exe (about 34 MB).

Run the installer

Double-click the installer. You'll see one or two prompts:

SmartScreen “Unrecognised app”. The installer is not code-signed yet — signing is on the 1.0 roadmap. Click More info, then Run anyway.
Inno Setup setup wizard. Click Next through the two pages. The default install location is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\FfbBridge — a per-user install, no administrator permission required.

Windows 11 Smart App Control blocks unsigned apps outright

If you're on Windows 11 with Smart App Control (SAC) enabled in Active mode, the installer simply won't launch — no SmartScreen prompt, no “Run anyway” option, just nothing happens. SAC refuses any app without a trusted code-signing signature, and the beta builds aren't signed yet.

The only way around it today is to turn Smart App Control off long enough to install. Microsoft's own guidance covers the flow (including how to toggle it via Settings → Privacy & security → Windows Security → App & browser control → Smart App Control settings):

Microsoft: Smart App Control frequently asked questions

Good news vs early Windows 11: recent cumulative updates let you re-enable SAC from the Windows Security App once the install is finished — Microsoft used to require a full Windows reinstall, but that restriction is gone. The FFB-Bridge app itself will keep running normally after SAC comes back on; SAC only checks at launch for apps it hasn't seen before.

Code-signed installers are on the 1.0 roadmap and will remove this step entirely.

Launching

A Start Menu shortcut named FFB-Bridge lands in the FFB-Bridge program group. You can also launch directly from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\FfbBridge\FfbBridge.Desktop.exe.

Heads up — antivirus

Some antivirus products flag unsigned binaries. If yours quarantines the installer outright (rather than just warning), please email the flagged sample to feedback·ffb-bridge.com (replace the · with an @) so we can investigate.

Uninstalling

Open Apps & features in Windows Settings, search for FFB-Bridge, and choose Uninstall. Your profiles and preferences under %APPDATA%\ffb-bridge are left in place so a reinstall picks them up again; remove that folder by hand if you want a clean slate.

Linux AppImage

Download

Same signup flow as Windows — click the Linux link in the email and you'll get FfbBridge-x86_64.AppImage (about 40 MB).

Make it executable and install

AppImages need the executable bit set and, on most distros, to be registered in the application menu so the desktop launcher picks them up. The included install.sh script does both; the long form is:

chmod +x FfbBridge-x86_64.AppImage
mkdir -p ~/Applications
mv FfbBridge-x86_64.AppImage ~/Applications/
~/Applications/FfbBridge-x86_64.AppImage --install

The --install flag registers a .desktop file and icon into your XDG data directories. After that, a FFB-Bridge entry shows up in your application menu alongside other GUI apps.

Figure 1. The installed menu entry on KDE Plasma. GNOME, Xfce, and other XDG-compatible environments pick it up identically.

udev rule (recommended)

Out of the box, only the user whose login session owns the joystick can open its /dev/input/eventN node. For the bridge to keep working after a fast-user-switch, or simply to avoid polkit prompts on some distributions, the Doctor page offers a one-click install of the following udev rule:

# /etc/udev/rules.d/99-ffb-bridge.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="input", ATTRS{idVendor}=="045e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="001b", TAG+="uaccess"

NixOS

NixOS reads udev rules from the system config, not /etc/udev/rules.d. Add the equivalent to your configuration.nix:

services.udev.extraRules = ''
  SUBSYSTEM=="input", ATTRS{idVendor}=="045e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="001b", TAG+="uaccess"
'';

Then sudo nixos-rebuild switch and replug the stick.

Uninstalling

Either delete ~/Applications/FfbBridge-x86_64.AppImage and run the bundled uninstaller, or run the AppImage with the --uninstall flag to reverse the menu/icon registration automatically. Profiles and preferences under ~/.config/ffb-bridge are kept for a later reinstall.

Verifying the install

Launch FFB-Bridge. The first thing you should see is the Welcome dialog (covered in the next section). If the app doesn't start at all, or crashes on launch, jump straight to Troubleshooting.