Q:

Is it OK to accept one answer and award bounty to another?

I have recently started my first bounty on my own question to draw attention to it. It worked really great, now I got some answers: Can I access a static local while it is being constructed in C++?
In particular, there are two answers very interesting for me. The one explains why the problem occurs, and directly addresses one of the bounty criteria. But it does not offer a direct solution.
The other is a good solution that I will probably use in my situation. However, it does not provide a solution in the criteria I outlined in the bounty (which I learned from the former answer, is not possible).
So is it ok to award the bounty to the former, but accept the later? Or is this considered bad etiquette?

A:

You can award the bounty, accepted answer and any associated up or down votes how you want. There are many cases around Stack Overflow where the bounty went to an answer that is not the accepted answer.
Do note, though, that if you do not award the bounty and an answer posted after the bounty period started gets a score of 2 or more, it is eligible for half of the bounty to be awarded automatically. 

A:

As @Andy said, yes it is fine.  That said...

What criteria (if any) did you attach to the delivery of the bounty?  As I read your question I do not see anything, but if you said "bounty will be given to answers that..." then that is what will be expected.
Which question best answers your question?  If the first answer provides the best answer to your question, then technically (unless otherwise state) it should be marked as correct and get the bounty.  The second answer's work around, though valuable, does not deserve the bounty and should not be marked as correct.  If you want to give them a bounty you could (correct me if I am wrong) let the poster know, create a new question asking for a workaround and ... I think you get the rest.

Your post has a slight problem, you asked two questions (which is forbidden for good reason).
 - "Is this situation really undefined behaviour? Or is it a compiler bug in VS2015?"
- "What is the best solution to such a situation, prefably without dropping a full constructor, and RAII?"
While you could have stated that the bounty would only be awarded to an answer with both answers, I would not have since it would probably be too much to ask of any one answer-er.
At this point I would make sure that the answer-er know about this thread so they can voice any concerns, then apply the bounty as you see fit.  You could also try to use the automated process to split the bounty, but I do not know if this is possible or reasonable.
If you follow the above guidlines in the future you will probably not have this issue, but either way, feel free to add a comment on the answers expaling why you did what you did, "I gave you the bounty because you gave me a solution as requested."

