Is there any safe way to increase the deadzone on the 360 controller in Windows 7? I used a program a few months ago, can't remember the name, and it embedded itself into the actual directinput dll, and it basically made every controller I used drift after using it. I ended up having to reinstall windows entirely to fix it.

Is there a top-level program I can use to adjust deadzone?

I have the same issue too. My craft likes to pull to the left and down.

Doing a quick google search, no you can not edit the deadzone. However, there are several options to fixing that, though most seem to be a xinput wrapper.

NOTE: I have not tried any of them yet.

I'll be trying this one tonight.

Durazno is a XInput wrapper that simply sits between the controller and the game so as to allow for input customization.
https://code.google.com/p/magical-tools/wiki/Durazno

I just tried the one you linked, and it has no effect on the controller while playing Tie Fighter. To be sure, it was detecting the controller when I was remapping stuff inside the Duranzo app, but none of it was working inside Tie Fighter.

Do you have any other suggestions?

I'm at a loss then. I'm going to get a good joystick.