About 5 days after my original post and after trying everything in the attached articles where nothing worked - this problem magically self-corrected itself. I just tried the software for the hell of it and it opened and prompted for updates and it updated.
NOW, while using the software on 3/5/2021 I get to the point of submitting a return - It wants to check for updates and you guessed it, SAME PROBLEM! Update errors out. From what I can see it appears a new update was release on 3/4/2021
This is beyond frustrating .......
