Well, I’m back, waving a victory flag! Christina’s magical extension was such an integral part of my work flow that I had to resolve this. I tried several things today:
Virus scan (Microsoft Safety Scanner), scoured the registry for a misapplied computer name (yes, I changed the name of the computer and caused all sorts of grief!), researched script error code 800704c7 and followed instructions to resolve it in command prompt. Nothing worked.
Then this afternoon while researching paths to files and their permissions I was reading a seemingly unrelated thread on the forum (All my preferred file location paths are invalid) and was reminded of the PrivatePreferences.json file. In an attempt to resolve the OP’s issue @colin suggested deleting the file and allowing Sketchup to rebuild it on restart. So, thinking, “It probably won’t work, but it can’t hurt!” I did just that and now Open Newer Version works as intended! I don’t know why it worked but I am hugely thankful that it did!
I hope this might help someone else who runs into this script error.
Thank you @DanRathbun and @slbaumgartner for your replies.