DirectInput

Because DirectInput is way harder to use than to simply intersect key press/release messages. On top of that, it creates a thread for that purpose.

So yes, their suggestion (which you should follow most, if not all, of the time) is the right one. Simply drop DirectInput and let it rot in a corner... ;)

Reasons

Thanks for the response guys.

For keyboard input you definitely shouldn't use it. For mouse input it's OK, provided that you know, understand and accept that it's behaviour is what you want. If that's the case then it's still a solid enough and respectable enough API that will handle a lot of things (such as hiding the mouse cursor, disabling acceleration, clipping to the window rect, etc) automatically for you. So if that's desirable behaviour and if you don't want to have to write your own code to handle it, then by all means it's perfectly fine.

Note that you can easily use DI for mouse input but still use Windows messaging for keyboard input. It's not a case of all or nothing.

I'm still using it for gamepad input, I guess I have no other choice ?