I have never used Windows 7, so this is from experience with Vista and XP.
1) Does the controller light up at all? When connected to USB the green LED's should come on if the controller is working.
2) The program only checks COM1, COM2 and COM3, be sure that the computer has not assigned a much higher COM port to the controller and reassign as needed, flow control should be Xon/Xoff
3) If this is a laptop, the USB cable may be too long for the lower power of laptop USB ports and a shorter USB A to USB A cable may be all that is needed.