Not using private key file

This concerns Dreamweaver v 23.1 on Windows 10. I just installed Windows latest update yesterday. A description of the problem is below. To replicate-

-set up a remote server using SFTP

-use private key authentication

-enter the correct user name

-enter the correct password

-select the correct private key file

-attempt to put files to the server or to connect to the server

Expected result is a connection to the server (has worked for years using same info). Actual result is an FTP error "cannot make connection to the host. Your login or password is incorrect. Please check your connection information". 

Starting today, after updating to the newest version of Dreamweaver, on Windows 10, I am getting an FTP error when I try to connect by SFTP to my remote web server. It tells me that my password and login are incorrect. This is not the case. My login credentials and my private key are correct.  My private key is stored on my E drive. It is a .pem key that has worked for years. I have tried the ppk version of my key on FileZilla, and it works. 

I think that Dreamweaver is not picking up the file. Below is the bottom portion of my SFTP log file. My private key is on my E drive. It's locaction is E:\************.pem (with the wildcards representing the actual file name). Notice how my log file seems to only pick up my E drive, and not the rest of the file path.

fopen ~/.ssh/known_hosts: No such file or directory
fopen ~/.ssh/known_hosts2: No such file or directory
fopen /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts: No such file or directory
fopen /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts2: No such file or directory
Could not create directory '~/.ssh' (No such file or directory).
Failed to add the host to the list of known hosts (~/.ssh/known_hosts).
send packet: type 21
set_newkeys: mode 1
rekey out after 134217728 blocks
SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
receive packet: type 21
SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
set_newkeys: mode 0
rekey in after 134217728 blocks
Will attempt key: E explicit
done
send packet: type 5
receive packet: type 7
SSH2_MSG_EXT_INFO received
server-sig-algs=<rsa-sha2-256,rsa-sha2-512>
receive packet: type 6
service_accept: ssh-userauth
SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
send packet: type 50
receive packet: type 51
Authentications that can continue: publickey
start over, passed a different list publickey
preferred publickey,password
authmethod_lookup publickey
remaining preferred: password
authmethod_is_enabled publickey
Next authentication method: publickey
Trying private key: E
we did not send a packet, disable method
No more authentication methods to try.

According to the log file, my server is running OpenSSH 7.4 and my local OpenSSH is version 8.8.