PROBLEM SOLVED!!! For anyone else with similar issues, I recommend the following:
1. Do not check the box in LCDSmartie for it to autostart. Start the program as a task in task scheduler; run with highest privileges; delay running for 30 seconds to 1 minute to allow for resources availability on COM ports
2. In Device Manager: find the device; Under Port Setup, make sure the bits per second are set to the same as LCDSmartie, which should be set to 38400 for this specific LCD-Windows default is 9600; Under Miscellaneous options, under advanced, set to Serial Printer instead of Serial Enumerator or anything else-Windows default is Serial Enumerator. Also make sure the COM port is 1 through 4, if not, change to 1 through 4, and make sure device manager com port number is same as LCDSmartie.
Also, version 1.1 is available here:
http://www.fast351.com/webstuff/LCDSmartie/
Also, the version 1.1 is the direct lisvfd.dll download not the zip file. It will say version 1.0 in windows file details, but when loaded into lcdsmartie, lcdsmartie shows it has version 1.1