I'll try to help, my instructions worked on my pc with windows 8 x64 and some people tried in windows 7 without problems so please make sure:
Camera dial is set M mode
Battery is charged
You have the proper drivers (install the cd that came with your camera and then use the eosutility from my post)
Copied the firmware.fir to the card before flashing it from eosutility
Things to try if it still dont work:
***Go to Device Manager by pressing WindowsKey+R and typing devmgmt.msc
Expand the Portable Devices tree and Disable all of them except Canon EOS 7d by right-click - Disable***
Reset your camera to factory settings
Run eosutility in windows 7/vista/xp mode, or as Administrator
Format the CF before trying everything, from the camera
Tell me if nothing helps so i will upload the full cd from where i got the eosutility.
Can you please answer the following question.
When you select the firmware.fir after in the EOSUtility and hit OK another windows comes up saying something about hitting SET and not touching any buttons right?
At that moment in the top of EOSUtility in RED Letters it says Lost connection.
7D goes into Initializing firmware update then in goes black and turns back on
On the card I am left with capital letters now FIRMARE.FIR and 3 more files.
When I delete those or format the card and place ML folder with autoexec in the root and boot 7d nothing happens.
I think it never gets flagged
I have done everything in M mode out of Live View , reset 7d to factory settings, ran EOS utility in different compatibility modes from XP to vista to whatnot in Admin mode.
I guess its the drivers then or I am stupid!