Hello,

I don't know if this helps by I recently got the Melabs USB PIC programmer along with PBPRO, and Microcode studio. After installing all the software, In MCS I selected the MicroEngineering Labs Serial Programmer, then told it where to find the programmer software.

I've been making programs for a few weeks now and I haven't had any problems programming PICS.

As far as MPLAB goes I haven't even played with it yet, but from what I have been reading it doesn't support anything other than the Microchip programmers.