Windows 7 64-bit and Samsung Kies Mini

I was shocked to find out that AT&T and Samsung had finally provided a Froyo (Android 2.2) update for the Captivate Galaxy S phone.  All I had to do was download Samsung's Kies Mini firmware updating application (the version available was actually an AT&T modified stripped down version) and setup my phone correctly, backup critical data and press 'Upgrade.'

Of course, it never works out that way in the real world but I must admit that even a jaded and cynical software engineer like myself was disgusted and disappointed when every single time I connected my Captivate to my computer with Kies running, the Kies application would identify the phone and then promptly crash.

I Googled, Googled some more, tried compatibility settings, running as Administrator, I even tried using a Windows XP virtual machine in case it was a 32-bit issue - sadly Virtual PC 2007 (what I use on Windows 7) doesn't pass USB to a VM.

In any case, I was getting more and more frustrated and was ready to quit when I ran across an obscure tiny little message on some news server somewhere where a guy mentions - "Oh, yeah, and if you have IE9 installed on your machine, take it off."

Well, I just happened to have an IE9 release candidate installed.  How that crashed Kies escapes me since you'd have to be a pretty crap software engineer to have not tested your Windows only application, which you are releasing to MILLIONS of people to use, against IE6, IE7, IE8, and IE9 - but hey, Samsung are weird that way.  They make some wonderful things and somehow drop the ball on the really trivially simple things.

Long story shorter, uninstalled IE9, ran Kies Mini, phone showed up, chose 'Upgrade', a few minutes later I'm running flash on my Android phone.