In the meantime, what actually works for me, on Windows 10, is that I have to manually restart the PACE service.
Go to Task Manager, right-click on “PACE License Service” - and click “End Task”. It’ll then restart itself. Try opening your projects again - it’ll be quick this time.
However, I’m not satisfied with always having to manually restart the PACE License Service - it’s really not how I want to be able to work with.
I’ll update this section as I get more answers from PACE.