Okay, so I tried the clean boot idea: created the local admin account (through "family and other users"), but signing in to it means going through the whole Windows setup....I cannot believe that's what is being suggesting here. I am NOT going to go through this whole process....it's really involved. Back in my regular admin account, at the moment Fences in installed but not configured. What I have is a desktop with everything in Fences general order, but no fences.
Not sure how to proceed at this point.
(btw I accidentally created a duplicate response here....can't see any way to delete a response.....puzzling.)