Canon 400D - difficulty d.loading pics with canon software

Joined: 27 Oct 2006 Posts: 20 Location: Blackpool UK

I've had my Canon Eos400D for a little while now, I'm having a lot of difficulty downloading using the supplied Eos utility.
I've previously used my Sony Cybershot camera without their supplied software as I found that windows XP handled the thumbs better than the fiddly sony software.
When I bought my Eos 400D I figured I'd do without the Eos Utility until I found that I couldn't get the photo's to download.
After loading the software in, and following the instrucitons to the letter :-

plug the camera in (with it turned off)
switch the camera on (which should fire up the software)
Select 'Eos Utility' when the program selection screen comes on

..... I've never really got further than this, the only tile I get is the standard XP thing, suggesting do I want to open in a variety of useless programs (none of which are the Canon Utility)

I sometimes get the red light flashing on the camera.... sometimes the transfer button lights, or flashes...... regardless of how I follow the instructions on the camera, or on the Utility program when I do eventually get it up........ I get slow or stalled programs, and no pictures not matter how long I wait

I can accept that the problem is possibly my computer
or possibly I should re-install the Utility

should I just by a CF card reader ??

thanks
Paul.