[eluser]Mirge[/eluser]
Follow-up..... it stopped working.
A bit of Google'ing turned up a gem saying readme says Win7 64-bit NOT supported. So, uninstalled 1.7.4 and installing 1.7.3 now, same version you're running. Bet it works flawlessly after this... will edit this post once it finishes installing, etc.
EDIT: still not working. ugh.
EDIT AGAIN: Removed my entire codeigniter/ folder, re-downloaded fresh..... now it works. NO clue what happened, but it works again with 1.7.3. Hurray!