Hello, all. I seem to have a resolution. To recap, PE15 installed, would not start, checked here, got w/ Adobe Chat (see above), then prior versions of PE would not work, then gave up.
After a vacation, I needed the computer. After the Adobe chat crew were finished, there were a LOT of things that were crapflunkated. Some came back slowly, but the print spooler would not start, I could not use any printers. Uninstalled/reinstalled, no luck. Did not even try PE. I run AVG anti-virus, keep it updated. It didn't find any problems. During troubleshooting my print spooler, I found a program, part of MS Windows, System File Checker. Ran that, no problems. Found another forum and discovered another MS tool, MS Safety Scanner. It, too, found no problems.
Success here: I saw a repeated mention of an AV program, HitManPro. Since I was on the verge of buying a new hard drive w/ a new set of Windows pre-installed, I decided to give it a go. It found one piece of Malware (I can't find the log on it or would supply the name, sorry), fixed it and all the printers came back to life.
I decided to try PE, version 14, which before was not working. It came right up, but wasn't able to open any projects. I did a couple of re-boots, then opened PE14 and did a File/Open for a recent project. There were a couple of assets missing, but I was able to do a Clip/Replace Footage and things were just fine. I worked on PE14 for a while, then decided to re-install PE15 again. It seems to be working fine, though I haven't used it much yet.
It's strange how PE is so susceptible to some minor piece of malware. That seems to be the first place to look when PE doesn't work right. PhotoShopElements 15 was doing the same thing, but I have not tried to re-install yet.
Happy editing, all. Thanks Steve, for the replies and patience shown to so many.
Thanks
Duke