Hello Scook,
I followed all the instructions (even though this all freaked me out) and was able to re-install Cakewalk by Bandlab successfully. There was a small glitch, but stupid me, I didn't make a note of what it was but was able to continue through the install. I now have a beautiful UI - Tungsten Dark Theme and the choice is there if I do want to switch back to Mercury. I probably won't because it was too hard on my eyes.
One weird thing... I've always had a problem with the Waves plug-ins coming up with errors on the VST Scan but now everything scanned perfectly - first time in maybe 6 months!
I want to thank you and the other members on this site for taking the time to help.
I hope I never have to do all of this again - I absolutely hate going into the directory and deleting stuff!
Bye for now,
Paul