I'm replying to my own post….
I got it to work.
I think it only worked because I first started with the Time Factor in normal boot up mode so the update utility would get the firmware version number. Then when I clicked the "Why?" button next to where it said it's not ready to update it said to start it up in update mode and then refresh. I did that and the version number was shown along with ready to update. then it actually worked and updated my time Factor. Go figure….
the only strange behavior now is that the update file was not saved anywhere on my computer.
Teddy