hmm lets review one more time.

step 1. put phone in bootloader mode.
step 2. make sure it says serial on the screen.
step 3. connect phone to pc via usb cable
step 4. wait 1 minute for phone to be probably connected to pc
step 5. Load up the file called MaUpgradeUt_noID.exe
step 6. Follow the directions in the window that is presented.
step 7. Once installed, it will ask you to disconnect
step 8. Disconnect from pc by unplugging usb cable
step 9. soft reset phone
step 10. because you do the customizations or install anything hard reset.
step 11. may the force be with you

I had the same problem for awhile, then I got the bright idea to reset my USB ports, between the stuff my wife plugs in (PDA, MP3 player headset charger....etc.) and what I normally plug in, plus a USB hub we had 12 profiles in the system manager!
After deleted the unused profiles and just used a dedicated USB port for my 6700.
Everything flashed just fine.

Yeah, this is definitely what I am doing exactly up to step 5. Step 5 deviates on some builds and I have followed the read me documentation as to which .exe to use. At step 6, the upgrade routine seems to be running fine and then the same grey dialog box pops up and informs me of a country code error.

I asked one of my field engineers to come by and try to follow the simple instructions and she too wound up in the same place with just me watching her.

I didn't think to look at the USB set up on the machines. These are all heavily used workstations I tried so far so that will be next on Monday. Thanks for the tip!

Add yet one more to the list of people having this problem...

As this has been over a month, hopefully there is a clear solution at this time?

I think I've read everything there is to read on this site about this problem, and although one person found a solution here:

http://www.ppcgeeks.com/re-installin...try.html#40768

that's not a solution that will work for me.