Can't get 4.83 or 4.84 to work

[Tippo]

Right, been fiddling around with these for about 3 hours to no avail... running Vista 32 btw

I had a clean install of FL, then installed FLMM, then 4.83. Activated 4.83, run FL and I'm back on the CTD error and 'Freelancer has stopped working' message on startup which I fixed with a patch originally.

Attempted to deactivate 4.83, failed.
Uninstalled FL, tried to find FLMM to uninstall it but it doesn't appear in Programs and Features and has no uninstall utility, so deleted it from Program Files.

Reinstalled FL, reinstalled FLMM, dl'd 4.84. 4.84 appears in FLMM with a message about another instance running, should it be deactivated? Yes, 4.84 apparently active, even though there are NO 4.84 files in the FLMM mod folder (though there appear to be at least some in the FL folder - can't manually place them in the FLMM folder since the download doesn't seem to give me that option, it just runs in FLMM). Run FL, same CTD bug. Try to deactivate 4.84, same failure.

Now what? The content.dll file IS there in the FL folder and I've tried the delete autosave button.
At some point I also had FL server running but could only seem to host, not join, and I couldn't run the game- all shortcuts etc just led to FL server.