I did end up figuring this out. the tutorial is terrible when it comes to installing drivers. there is 3 different drivers a virtual serial port, and 2 ICDI drivers. the answer for the ICDI drivers is here http://www.ti.com/lit/ml/spmu287c/spmu287c.pdf , http://www.ti.com/tool/stellaris_icdi_drivers . I hope this helps someone. One would think TI would make a good step by step tutorial for casual hackers like me to get going. I imagine from all the ICDI problems they would get the hint that help is needed. The answers are out there but they are all over the place and not linked together.
thanks, dan