Not knowing what the problem was with your laptop in the first place makes it difficult to assess what is going on. It may be best to get back with customer support since they will at least have the history of the laptop's problems recorded. In case that is too frustrating for you then you can try uninstalling and reinstalling InDesign yourself in the following manner:
In the app section of your Creative Cloud desktop app click on the “V” next to the app’s (InDesign) name and choose the “Uninstall” option from the pull-down menu that appears. After you’ve run the uninstall then use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool Use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems . Then reinstall the program through the Desktop app. Before you reinstall, once again trash all preference files to make sure that your install is completely clean. Then launch InDesign and see if the problem persists.
Using the Creative Cloud cleaner as directed has been known to clear up problems that linger from previous installs.
Bill, you're very helpful thanks!
I tried following your advice above but maybe I renamed the wrong (language) folder rather than the parent folder one level up - which i did - and this didn't have any effect.
I gave up and had a very helpful guy at tech support named Chetan who solved the problem, who was thinking and acting along the same lines as you in terms of the preferences issues needed resetting/deleting.
I'm not sure whether he did something else also.