Skidoo – there was a Phinx.bat that is recommended for all Windows server-based setups (see Upgrading to xibo v2, unable to do database migrations) – I do not know why, as I am not a PHP person (C#/Java/VB/JS are my main languages). However, it was a non-default file that just makes it easier to run the phinx commands to do a migration. Without changing the line endings to CRLF, the file was literally just one large “comment” (REM statement).
Regardless of that part, the worst that I should be seeing is problems with my migrated data from my understanding. Instead, even new layouts are not working. I am considering blowing everything away, which makes me quite discontented, and recreating everything from scratch. However, that seems to defeat the entire point of having an “upgrade”, and I would be better off just going back to 1.8.