NI Software Gives C++ Runtime Error "Terminated in an Unusual Way" After Windows 10 Update

Issue Details

I have recently updated my Windows 10 operating system and I discovered that NI software installers can not run anymore. I am getting an error message from Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library: 

Runtime Error!

Program:
<Path to executable>

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in
an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more
information.



The result is the same no matter what NI installer I try to run (LabVIEW, Drivers (e.g.: NI-DAQmx), VeriStand, DIAdem, patches, both 32/64-bit versions, etc). Other (non-NI) installers work fine and already installed NI software also works fine.

Solution

This issue has been known to occur on Windows 10 systems updated to version 1809 (the September 2018 update) that use a certain subset of all "Regional format" of the form English (<My Country>). Microsoft has published an update to Windows 10 version 1809 in KB4482887 that resolves the error. The same issue occurs in Windows 10 version 1903 (released in August 2019) and 20H2 (released in October 2020), though as no update to Windows that resolves the error has been published, please follow the steps below.

To determine what version of Windows 10 you are running, type "winver.exe" into the Windows Start Menu and hit enter.

The following Regional format settings have been confirmed to cause this issue:

• English (Sweden)
• English (Denmark)
• English (Netherlands)
• English (Switzerland)
• English (Germany)
• English (Europe)

Here are some examples that do work:

• English (United Kingdom)
• English (Belgium)
• English (United States)
• Dansk (Danmark)

To obtain the update to Windows 10:

1. Open the Start menu
2. Click the Settings gear
3. Click Update & Security
4. Click Check for Updates

If you are unable to install the update or attempting to fix the issue for Windows v1903, to get past this error you can:

1. Open the Windows Start Menu and type "Region Settings", then hit enter (screenshot below)
2. Change the Region Format to one of the known working regions included above and close the dialog.
3. Run the installer and reboot if prompted.
4. Change the region setting back to its original language.
5. If there are different accounts on the computer, change the settings of the Administrator Account. Changing only the settings of other accounts may not fix the issue. 

Additional Information

This error is happening because Microsoft changed a longstanding behavior of a language system API in Windows 10 v1809 and again in v1903 and later in v20H2 that results in the fatal installer error.

This error will be encountered while running the following types of NI installers:

• Any product installer released in 2011 or later.
• Any installer created by NI Software (LabVIEW, TestStand, etc.) will build correctly but crash when run.
• Installers run by NI Update Service.
• Installers built in LabVIEW 2019 are not affected by this issue, though it is yet to be confirmed whether all 2019 versions of NI software are unaffected by this issue.