Success, finally after two weeks of screwing around trying to update the remote. I was able to get it updated after another, in a long line of reboots and trying the 7.7 software. After several minutes, it went all the way through.

Now I hopefully won't touch the darned thing again. However, truth be told, I do have a terrible wireless ISP connection so that is probably the biggest reason why it borks trying to update.

I really hated to "have" to use my old 15-2116 (JP1 programmed) remote. I have had that thing since 2004 and it absolutely refuses to die.