Just realised what the problem could be - Bitdefender!!!
Went looking through the logs and guess what I found
Online Threat Prevention
We blocked this dangerous page for your protection: http://patch.discoverygc.com/20231130-hotfix.zip
Accessed by: dslauncher.exe
Threat name: Gen:Variant.Zusy.527908
Dangerous pages attempt to install software that can harm the device, gather personal information or operate without your consent.
Yes, you can selectively, temporarily disable the scrutiny of Bitdefender concerning uploads/patches from the net with a simple slide button. Had the same problem, but forgot how this button is called and am at work right now
PS: appears to be "online threat detection" slider.
Thanks for the heads up - set an exception in Bitdefender and was able to patch.
Problem is the following report:
Feature: Antivirus
The file D:\Users\bob\AppData\Local\Discovery Freelancer 4.91.0\EXE\CapitalClassFixes.dll has been detected as infected with Gen:Variant.Zusy.527908 and Bitdefender could not clean this item. A device restart is required to finalize the cleaning process
What i did with my Antivirus was it has a function to not scan certain files or directories
"exception list"
With the new way DEV's inject files/processes into freelancer and make new tools in game work.
Some antivirus programs gets triggered by this.
What i did was told my Antivirus to add the whole freelancer install directory to the exception list
then completely uninstalled Freelancer Discovery no need to change vanilla install.
Then updated freelancer to current version via the launcher and "bingo" all working perfect.