Yeah I was googling like crazy and did come across a post or two where Roger said "the only way to fix that is by sending it in."
I tried another laptop last night, I still have one using Vista and .. well it was even worse. After verifying the drivers were up to date (it's 64-bit as well) .. I couldn't even get to the loader step because it installed itself onto COM9 and Tunze's software is hardwired to use only COM1, 2, or 3. I'll have to do some very low level digging to get past that. (Or use a virtual PC in XP mode maybe.) It's only 2012
The odds that most average users don't have the com ports used up (Bluetooth, USB, etc.) past 3 is not very good. That it even occurs to me to try using a virtual PC to get past these initial hurdles is ... well .. I have no words how bad that is. This productization level of this software is brutal. Major fail on Tunze's part. The lack of internationalization, the lack of integration into the Windows start menu, the location it installs itself "C:\tunze" instead of "Program Files" .. USB connectivity only .. etc. A high school student learning to program would have done a better job with this. Sorry Tunze but this is a #fail.
Thanks for your help nonetheless Bryan!