Yeah still applicable, the drivers you got with it basically fool the PC into thinking that the USB lead is serial connection. I'm willing to bet good money either the drivers aren't installed properly, or its some issue with the port allocation. Unfortunately its one of those things that just takes a bit of tinkering with....
Just out of curiosity - have any of you guys managed to get a 'cracked' version of VAG-COM to work? If so are you on XP or Vista?