Why do I see "LoadLibrary failed with error 126" when launching MATLAB R2016a or later?

Why do I see "LoadLibrary failed with error 126: The specified module could not be found" when launching MATLAB R2016a or later?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This error indicates that you are attempting to launch MATLAB R2016a or later on Windows 7 without Service Pack 1 installed. As of MATLAB R2016a, Service Pack 1 is required to run MATLAB on Windows 7.

To resolve this issue, open Windows Update and apply Windows 7 Service Pack 1.