Dunno, something must have broken the DDE routine beyond repair and I needed a reboot to fix it. Happens.
And the VM I also tested it appears to have had a problem with a mismatched api.
Happens.
PS!!! For YEARS, if you have the api installed in the TWS (jts) directory, and uninstall it , it craps on the TWS install. Deletes the jar.
They have never fixed this. wtf?
The solution is to install the api in its own dir.