So the FL IDE worked much better so far. No issues with the PBP interface or the MPASM. It wouldn't find the exe's automatically but manual mode worked. I thought it wouldn't keep the parameters for different programmers but the second time I put them it it seems to have kept them.
Default settings for ME Labs U2 programmer would be nice as that seems to be what they are replacing the serial and maybe parallel units with. I haven't figured out the parameters to pass program info to the pickit2 programmer yet.
Picking the origional IDE had the same error I started with in this thread as expected because it calls the MCS+ but who cares as you don't need it with this IDE. Not sure why you even need to put that option in.

Thanks for the try out
Scottie