Unable to load gba games or run lua with any game in general

Summary

Freshly downloaded bizhawk with installed prereqs is unable to read from the dll folder, specifically GBA games or attempting to use LUA.
Tested with Castlevania Circle of The Moon, which gave the error about mgba.dll, and if I launch with command line emuhawk.exe <game.gba>, it will launch but then attempting to access lua console gives an error about the dll folder. I tested also by moving the bizhawk folder around on my C Drive and even another internal drive, same outcomes.

Repro

1. Download and extract bizhawk and prereq. Extract anywhere you want
2. Install prereq
3. Launch bizhawk, set up firmware.
4. Select GBA game to launch, or simply open lua console while loading any game.

If I added the dll folder to the path environment, these issues go away.

Host env.

• BizHawk 2.11.1; Win11 Pro 15H2; AMD CPU/Nvidia GPU

Ignore the NP++ icon associated to the DLLs. Sometime in the distant past I dragged a DLL file into Notepad++ on accident and the icon stuck despite all attempts to disassociate it.

No source files or tests are named. Start by reproducing the failure with emuhawk.exe using a GBA game and the Lua console, comparing normal extraction with adding the dll folder to PATH. Done means GBA games and Lua load successfully from a freshly extracted BizHawk installation without modifying the system PATH.