Problem installing Canon iP 2702

Question

I am so frustrated right now, but trying to calm down.  I have purchased HP printers for years.  Once purchased a Kodak and regretted it the moment I got home.  Now I feel the same way about this Canon.
Alright, this is just an extra printer for an apartment I maintain in Houston for consulting.  I have an Asus G73JH Asus laptop.  That's an i7 powerhouse, running Windows 7 - 64 bit.
I have put the Canon CD in MANY times and tried installing it the quick way and the custom way.  Every time it gets the message, "Registering the program files..." and hangs there forever.  I have downloaded the latest drivers, to the same end.  I have tried both 32 bit version and 64 bit version to the same result.  I found the DELDRV.exe and DELDRV64.exe files by unzipping the downloaded files and have executed all of them.  I also have a USB Drive Cleanup program that often assists with USB driver problems (especially with thumb drives) and I have also executed it several times.  
No matter what I do, the driver installation hangs on the "registering the program files..." prompt.  This is worthless.  I am fairly good with computers, but this is worthless.  I've also Googled around for a fix and just found that several other people have had the same problem.  One blog talked about some guy who had Canon senior engineers on the phone and they couldn't figure it out for him either.  Just as an FYI, I know for an absolute fact that my computer does not have viruses.  I regularly scan my computer with Windows Defender and you will not find anyone more careful about email attachments and unknown executables, and NOBODY else uses my computer.  Furthermore, I have many other programs installed on this computer that run flawlessly, as well as many other printer drivers (mostly HP).  Even the Kodak driver is installed and works just fine.  
The one thing I DIDN'T find when Googling is a step-by-step guide on how to fix this problem.  I do understand that sometimes certain configurations can cause problems, but how about some solutions from you guys.  Is HP just doing a brain drain on you guys?
Send me an email if you think this can be corrected, because this is not good.  I really just bought this printer to print out my flight boarding passes, and won't need one for a couple of weeks, but it's going back if this isn't sorted soon.  Furthermore, I'll spend 15 minutes on Amazon and other places trashing your company if this isn't solved, seeing if I can manage to cost you a couple million.  Sorry, but I'm just upset at the poor quality of this driver software, but I am sincere.  I had a problem with the Kodak printer head that was defective when it came out of the box, and a VP of Kodak called me and apologized before it was all said and done.  And he's not the first VP to call me.  You know what?  Just for fun, I'm copying-and-pasting this note to all the top level Canon executives I can find.  Sorry, but this just isn't right.
Regards,
Elroy Sullivan, PhD
I'd dearly love to hear from someone who thinks they have the solution to this.
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Answer 1

Just as an add-on, I still haven't given up on this thing, primarily because I'd rather not stuff it all back into the box and hassle with taking it back to the store.  I've been looking for solution, but just keep running into the same roadblock.  One guy suggested opening Device Manager, right-clicking my computer in the detail pane and "Adding Legacy Device".  And I was to do this after trying to uninstall any previous installations and WITHOUT the printer's USB plugged in.  And I would use the unzipped driver I had downloaded from Canon.  Thinking this through, I actually had hope.  However, after going through the screens, selecting printer, and then the correct Canon printer, and then browsing to the unzipped device driver, it opens a window that says "Add Printer" and then just hangs forever with a message that says "Installing Printer...".  In my mind, it's trying to run the Canon device driver and getting hung in exactly the same place as before.  In other words, Canon is just giving us incredibly buggy device drivers.  Again, this is a quite snappy computer that doesn't have these kinds of problem.  Regards, Elroy Sullivan, PhD.  
I'd dearly love to hear from someone who thinks they have the solution to this.