This is my first post on this forum...

Well...
After downloading and installing 3.018, I managed to run the installer (took two tries though). This "updated" my version back to 3.017. 
(Yeah, I didn't read the instructions that told me not to run the updater.)

I ended up uninstalling what that left me with. Then I attempted to install 3.018 again  - this failed when it reached updater.exe. After deleting all the files in the game folder (I had to restart my computer before it stopped complaining that they were in use) I tried reinstalling again, and this time it worked.

So... now I'm just waiting for the server to come back on.