The DirectInput object in an application represents the DirectInput subsystem. It is used to enumerate and manage input devices.
You create the DirectInput object by calling the DirectInputCreate function, which returns a pointer to an IDirectInput COM interface. There are different versions of this interface for the ANSI and Unicode character sets.
Having created the DirectInput object, you can use the methods of the interface to enumerate individual devices available to the system and to create a DirectInputDevice object for each device you wish to use in your application.