So around Dec 12 2020 I stopped using PS for a bit and came back to it throwing errors at the initializing step in the startup sequence, the errors stated that I was missing an api-ms-win-core*.dll, this one api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-2-0.dll, so I went and installed it, only to have it continue crashing with a new .dll error listed.
Well after 3 days of trouble shooting I noticed that for some odd reason, adobe creative cloud installed the 13.1 version of camera raw, which is incompatible with Win 7. This to me makes no sense as I downloaded the older version of PS for Win7 yet they gave me a camera raw version that won't work. After installing an older version (12.4) of camera raw found here (Camera Raw plug-in installer) PS started with no issues.
Seeing how many people run into the missing .dll problem, creative cloud installing incompatible plug-ins, and as checking your camera raw version is not listed anywhere to my knowledge as a troubleshooting step I'm posting this PSA. Maybe Adobe will even add it to a known issue or troubleshooting step.
Hopefully if anyone has run into this issue my post can help them out.
Cheers
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