It's hard to know what is different between the two machines based on what you posted. Different O/S setups or versions (Win8 comes in several flavors)? Different sequence that you did things in? Funky non-standard SD card hardware on your laptop?
STICK works fine on both of my laptops so it's not a generic problem with laptops.
Note that STICK usually needs to run with Admin privileges on Win7& Win8. Did you click on
STICKX.CMD rather than
STICK.BAT ?
As you only ever need to setup a card once for the camera is will be used with, the most immediate suggestion is to just use your son's machine