Ok, I went home and ran the mame -cc command and got a mame.ini file. I then went down to the entry for ctrlr and changed it to "slikstik" just like it says in the windows.txt file supplied with mame. I launch a game, mame and mamewah controls are messed up. I then found a field in the mamewah.ini called ctrlr. I put "slikstik" into that field, controls still messed up. I tried to type in slikstik.cfg and c:\mame\ctrlr\slikstik.cfg, same problem. In the mame.ini, ctrlr is listed as "ctrlr #". I tried typing in the number 3, as it was the 3rd controller profile, same problem. I checked the file permissions, they weren't read only. XP SP2 has this thing that detects if a file is copied from another computer and blocks it. I turned that off, same problem. I downloaded a slikstik.cfg file from slikstik and overrode the existing slikstik.cfg in the mame ctrlr folder, same problem.
I believe it is reading the mame.ini file as I turned disable game warnings to a 1 and it stopped making me jiggle the joystick left and right for street fighter alpha 3 to get rid of the ok screen. How do I make this work?