I concede defeat... REW will not run

Hello All. I'm a longtime user of REW. Except for the last 7 months, because I cannot get it to run, despite lots of research and best efforts. I'll try to explain the conditions as best I can.

I use a 6 yr old Dell laptop that came with Win10 and now has Win11 24H2. I started with REW v5.19 on this machine and then updated to v5.20.13. That worked for years until June 2025 when it didn't. The rew_output log didn't say anything different between working and not working. The only info it listed is not finding specified csjsoundRates and csjsoundChannels. (In my research now I've found how to add lines to roomeqwizard.vmoptions to make that go away.) Throughout all of my attempts to fix things, REW behaviour has remained the same: the colourful splash screen will show for a few seconds then the main window will come up. 1 or 2 dialog boxes will popup and disappear very fast, and then REW will crash and the main window will disappear.
I tried uninstalling v5.20.13 and reinstalling - no change; uninstalling v5.20.13 and installing the current official release v5.31.3 - rew_output log added a line 'Could not enable Direct3D pipeline on screen 0'; tried the other official releases back down to 5.20.13 - nothing worked; tried updating my Intel UHD Graphics 620 drivers even though they weren't that old - no luck; tried changing my screen resolution to other than the native 1920x1080 - nothing; then tried adding the command -Dsun.java2d.d3d=False to disable hardware graphics acceleration - that made the error about the Direct3D pipeline go away but did not change what REW does; uninstalled v5.31.3 and installed v5.40 beta 113 - no change; connected laptop to my pre/pro via HDMI and my USB mic as normal and adjusted Win settings as needed for the new I/O devices and then started REW - no change in REW behaviour or what the log file says.

I have run out of talent, no more ideas of what I can change or do. I have the feeling that this isn't a REW problem at all, it could be a Windows problem or a JRE problem and I just don't know how to diagnose it. I haven't found any info directly related to this situation to guide me to a solution. I am hoping there is a kind soul here who has seen this before and knows what to do or can help me debug the problem.

Thanks so much for listening,
Carl

Make a zip copy of the REW folder in your home directory (C:\Users\<your username>) then delete the folder. If REW then starts OK please email a copy of the zip file to feedback@roomeqwizard.com.

Still crashed. Do you still need the REW folder? I didn't zip it, it's only 28KB. I just moved it to the desktop.

Sure, worth a look.