The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142) due to missing Visual C++ Redistributables

Considerations

When launching FME Workbench for the first time, users may run into the error message:

The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142).
Click OK to close the application.

Occasionally, this may also present on FME Flow, which could look like:

• A user being unable to assign engines after installation and licensing 
• An engine crash: Process "localhost_Engine1" ended unexpectedly and has reached its start attempts limit of 20 which can be seen in the fmeprocessmonitorengine.log
• Microsoft Windows Event Viewer is reporting an application crash on FMEEngine.exe with a faulting module of MSVCP140.dll.

Why This Happens

Your environment may be loading an older version of Microsoft Visual C++ redistributables (MSVC/C++ Runtime) than what is required by your installed version of FME.

How to Resolve It 

Update to the latest version of the Microsoft Visual C++ redistributables (MSVC/C++ Runtime). For example, FME 2025.2.1 ships with version 14.38, so updating to 14.38 or newer would resolve the crash. 

1. Check your runtime version by going to your Start Menu and checking ‘Add or Remove Programs’, searching for the Microsoft Visual C++ redistributables 
2. Download both the X84 and X64 options of the latest version of the installer from Microsoft: Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable latest supported downloads
3. Install the latest version.
4. Launch FME.

Additional Resources 

For more troubleshooting details, please see: Errors due to missing Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable