Yes, Nick I did I went in and un-installed all the USB Driver instances I could find... So as to "level" the playing field and in the consideration that I might (and may still) have or had a driver conflict or that the device (Mega) was being rejected? as a defective device. I had further reason for this, in that hopefully my Mega might be recognized as a New Device.
No such luck, unfortunately.
I am sort of the mind that the code in the 8U2 is not returning the correct driver device information to windows and thus my board (Mega) isn't recognized properly.
Re-Flashing the Mega 8U2 seems the best way to go but I am open to any thing that works preferably with the least effort on my part.
Doc