@Peter, we’ve seen a few issues with the updater getting stuck on ‘Checking Connections’ on Windows. Not sure what caused the issue as neither Samer nor I can reproduce the problem. But there is an alternative version of the firmware updater that you can try. First, download the following
http://raysfiles.com/os/osFWUpdater_0616.zip
1) Unzip the file to a folder, then go to the Windows subfolder, and find the executable.
2) Do NOT click on ‘Download Firmware’ button — because this is an older version, the download link is no longer available. But the firmware files are already embedded the local folders, so there is no need to download. If you accidentally clicked on it, just delete the folder and start over from step 1) again.
3) Click on ‘Detect Hardware’ button. Assuming the driver is installed correctly, it should detect that your OS.
4) Click ‘Upload Selected Firmware’ and wait for it to finish.