Adding serial game controller

My mother has a new computer that was preinstalled with Windows Vista
(UGH!!!!!!) and we have installed a sound card with a game/serial port that
we are needing to use for a foot pedal. Windows shows the unsupported
generic game port and it says that it is working properly. But if you go
into the game controller option on the Control panel, it doesn't show the
unsupported game controller to even be able to choose as an option. I know
in previous Windows that you could set up a generic game port and utilize it
with only as that. Does anyone have a solution on how to resolve this so
that we can see the game port under the game controller. Do we need to try
to get a different driver? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. In
previous Windows, it would not have taken days to get this set up.

Thanks,
Shona