EOS Utility not working

Hey guys, I recently got my 7D and downloaded the installation cd that came with it. It had all the Canon utilities and whatnot in it and I have been using the EOS Utility program to extract my pictures from my camera to my computer. However, my computer is an ******* at times and improperly extracts the computer and stays in one picture extracting for eternity so I usually just plug the usb out of the camera (which is a horrible idea.) After that, my EOS utility program hasn't been working and crashing as soon as I boot it up. I tried reinstalling but it was of no use. Help?

In my opinion you will have a much more reliable time using a card reader. Using the camera-computer direct connection can work fine, but there is a relatively complex setup of software, both in the computer, the Canon software, and the camera, that have to work perfectly. When you use a card reader, you simplify the software requirements -- the reader is a USB or Firewire device that is automatically detected as an external drive and can be accessed by any software so you don't need the Utilities unless you really want to use them.