Hi @stratlytic,
we implemented a fix, which will be rolled out with 5.2 and should minimise the risk of long paths on Windows. As the root cause can be different ones, it would have helped if you could have sent the various log files.
In your case, I suggest following through this post (completely): Unable to install geosptial extension - #2 by steffen_KNIME
It might be that in your new laptop KNIME Analytics Platform is on a longer path and has issues because of that.
If the update to 5.1.3 would have made a difference, the log files would be very interesting. I cannot tell why we do not keep the older 5.1.x versions.
Best regards
Steffen