Rehash of ARC160 and dreaded com/usb port problems

[eosin]

This is a rehash of a topic that has old posts in it. I've recently purchased the ARC160 software to program my Pro-162. I have a USB Serial cable (Radioshack 20-546) and I'm getting the evil "can't find your scanner" problem. Earlier, I read up on all the stuff from Butel and made sure I was starting ARC as administrator in windows 7 and that my usb->serial cable is on port #1. Earlier I did get it to work once. Even though windows said the device was working properly, I told it to troubleshoot the device and it came back that there was no driver installed for the device so it went out and found the driver and installed it. When I ran ARC, it uploaded fine to my astonishment. So after loading those first lists, I decided to reduce the vast number of frequencies I had in the scanner by uploading a smaller subset of frequencies to the scanner, once again it refuses to work. It always seems to try Port #3 and then bail out with the usual error. I'm at a loss what to do now since troubleshooting wont find a problem and ARC gives no way to set the port manually. I understand that it's supposed to automagically find the scanner and I don't know if it's user error, or software.. I just don't know
Anyway let me know if anyone has any ideas. I've already sent mail to Butel about the issue and have read through FAQs and threads and google and.. and.. and everything.. I'm going nuts.

Thanks in advance!
eosin.