Mystery solved, I think. I have a windows desktop enhancement application called Windowsblinds from StarDock. The application basically allows enormous configurations to change the Windows visual experience. Windowblinds also skins other applications when launched. However, it does allow for disabling the feature per application, which I did. That did not work, but unloading Windowblinds did work.
I was able to then launch the B4A IDE fine. Afterwards, I did enable Windowsblinds, at B4A seems happy. It does seem to be hit-or-miss though when Windowsblinds is enabled.