Sorry, we need to be very specific here. Are you launching using a MicroStation icon, or an InRoads icon. We need to verify that the icon has the right switches defined to load InRoads into MicroStation.
For example, if you right-click on an InRoads icon (Version V08.11.09.493 or V08.11.09.674) you will see the following command line switches added to the end of the Target: "-wsLoad_InRoads_SS3=1 -wsINROADS_APP=Suite".
Also, since you don't know what all has been done on this computer before you've inherited it, you might try to uninstall and re-install the MicroStation and InRoads programs (MicroStation first, then InRoads).