Changed computers, can't install

Running Windows 10 64 bit with firewalls disabled for the install, “The Update Manager has encountered a problem and needs to close.”. What can I try?

Are you attempting to install via Steam or Funcom? If Steam launch Steam as admin. If Funcom client, attempt to launch that one too as admin. Also you said you had your firewall disabled. Do you use only Windows Defender or any other software? You could whitelist SWL just to be sure, for both firewall and virus protection.

If it’s a fresh Windows installation, have you run dxwebsetup?

Funcom. Launching as admin doesn’t work even with Windows Defender and AVG Free disabled. I’ll try whitelisting.

I haven’t, and a brief online search doesn’t turn up pages explaining why I would - thank you for your recommendation but can you elaborate?

It’ll install the latest version of DirectX, and the funcom installer uses DirectX. If you’re not using the latest version then the installer may not be able to function properly. Effectively the installer is a book, and DirectX is required to be able to read that book. Without it, your PC is sat there looking at a bunch of text written in a language it doesn’t understand.

It’s not even the latest version that’s the problem, it’s DirectX 9, which is still required by many games older games, including SWL. The patcher needs it even if you choose to run the game in DX11. And the installer (dxwebsetup) is already present in the SWL folder, it just doesn’t get run automatically.

As Aeryl said, you need to install “dxwebsetup.exe” from the SWL installation folder

If it’s missing, you can DL " DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer" from here :
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35