Thanks for the reply C-Beats
The issue was, sometimes launching the executable would 9 out of 10 times not work. Upon further investigation on my end, during the install of 13.18 it would hang towards the end of the installation around where I saw DirectX was being installed. Then I saw a post here in the forums of some sending a screen shot of their installation folder. They had several more installed folders than I did. Particularly the Data, Plugins etc. At that point I decided to uninstall once more and D/L version 13.17 from https://launchbox.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/.
Much to my surprise, it installed flawlessly and LB was launched for the 1st time. However when shutting it down, and starting it back up, it insisted on install 13.18...blah blah. I've had a devil of a time getting LB to work.
I "finally" did resolve and find out what was causing the issue. I use MalwareBytes and WebRoot and, I have used these programs since their inception without ever a single issue. Webroot kept suspending LB in task manager. Shutddown webroot and boom it works just fine. Within Webroot there's a feature called System Analyzer. So here's what I did; shutdown Webroot, started LB and then launched LB, no issue. Ran Webroots System Analyzer and it reported (2) issues, one of which was (Launchbox.exe) has a possible memory leak. Is that the issue?, no idea, I am not an engineer. All I know is LB works fine if I shut down my antivirus. Webroot does not have anything blocked or locked, ports or otherwise and does not report any issues with LB other than, Webroot will not let LB 13.18 fully install, or run, without shuting it down and task manager will suspend LB in about 1 sec and unless you have a quick eye, will miss it.
Anyway! LB 13.18 works if I disable Webroot, which is no problem because I have LB now running and simply love it. It is very amazing frontend and the software engineers have done a wonderful job with the user interface and features. I've impoted MAME 0.272 ROMs (non-merged) and I love it!
thank you LB Team!