As this is some kind of "old" thread, I just wanted to post that this was also the solution to my (same) problem with PFPX "not starting", too.
- Had 1.28.
- Removed it
- Installed 2.03 -> Problem
- Removed 2.03
- Re-Installed 2.03 with install-surveillance tool
- Rebooted
- Started PFPX -> still problem
- purged PFPX with tool (for I was believing "well, this should do it.". It didn't)
- Re-newed vc-runtimes (actually now I use MSVC++ 2015-2019 in x86 and x64 version)
- Rebooted
- used regedit to delete mentioned "PFPX"-key (