Gladiator NXT EVO Premium - Flash problem 2.108 to 2.109

[drvrage]

Just got new Gladiator NXT EVO Premiums L & R sticks and trying to flash them from v2.108 to v2.109 as per instructions. In the VKBDevCfg-C.exe app I can see the left and right sticks as soon as I plug them in to my USB 3 ports. (They appear in the blue window at the top as:

VKBsim Gladiator EVO L XT v2.108 : HID-compliant game controller
VKBsim Gladiator EVO R XT v2.108 : HID-compliant game controller

However as soon as I select either one of them, right in this example, then from the Tools tab I select Bootloader the Z-Bootloader app appears, but the entry in Device Config changes to:

VKBsim Gladiator EVO L XT v2.108 : HID-compliant game controller
zBoot Njoy32 v02.31 Lite : HIS compliant vendor defined device

In the Z-Bootloader app, it says:

Boot device: detected - OK
_Gladiator_NXT_v2_09_0.vkb
0%

and in the bottom display window I see:

Found Boot Device : zBoot Njoy32

When I click the "Flash It!" button I get the message "!!! Device signature not correct - flash fail !!! Please check version of firmware file for this device. Watching the videos, it seems the error lies somewhere in the device changing from VKB Gladiator to Njoy 32 device as soon as I touch the ZBootloader. Any advice on how to proceed? I'd also like to note that the only way to get the sticks to reidentify as VKBsim Gladiator EVO L XT v2.108 is to unplug and replug them. If I try to select the Njoy device from Device CFG-C after failing the first time I get a tiny popup window titled VKB Joystick... "Error read CPUID". when I click OK, the message reappears one more time then I am returned to the CFG tools screen with nothing but the blue eagle logo.

[fallout9]

First of all, that is the wrong firmware you're trying to flash (it's for NXT). Second, there's absolutely no need to flash a brand new device. Please follow these steps to have them ready.