using a dualshock 2 controller via USB

hi, I am working on a spider robot, I can already control it with the keyboard, and I'd like to control it with my dualshock 2 plugged with a USB adapter. it works well with games and is detected as a 360 controller with a dll file. I tried to include it in my C++ code with xinput and followed tutorials for the 360 controller, but it was never detected. do you know a tutorial for a generic controller? a simple way to get the thumbstick values as integers would be great.