I ended up installing X12 but had a different issue with the fonts not looking good, but it was readable. I Googled how to change the windows default font and it ended up fixing this problem in Chief X11 and the other problem in X12. https://www.faqforge.com/windows/windows-10/how-to-change-the-default-font-in-windows-10/
I don't know how the default Windows font got corrupted in the first place, but it's good that the problem was solved (though I have to say, editing the registry like that in 2020 seems antiquated (ie. why isn't there some direct way in Windows 10 control panel to just click the font you want....)