Error Launching Adobe CS5 Applications

When launching Adobe CS5 applications, such as Photoshop or InDesign, an error occurs:

Runtime Error! Program C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Photoshop.exe.
This application has caused the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

Upon further investigation, it turns out the fault is occurring in MSVCR90.dll.

This problem has been observed to be solved by upgrading the computer's BIOS.