Crashing again to desktop when launching the game from the initial launcher. Second time now in a month... I don't want to reinstall yet again!

I would not uninstall it but take a look at other recent topics
More people suffer from ctd like this

If you want to delete something, delete usercfg.opt
It will make a new fresh one when you start the sim.

It will not meke the problem go away but reinstall does not garanty either.
Maybe in these topics you can find more info about these matters.

For example
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/gpu-problem-after-v1-31-22-0