Etainne: the launcher has long been like this. there are posts on the witcher forums that date back years ( if you go look, check out the advise given by Tommy, he is amazing at having the answers to issues. )
I long since stopped using the launcher and created an icon that goes to the game file for the .exe and run from there .
advise from another site is " try just bypassing the launcher and running the game from the game's .exe file (once again, under "\game location\bin\"). "
on my comp that would be path C: Program files(x86)>GOG>>TW2 EE>bin> Witcher2 application
I just click that and it starts right up
Good Luck
That does indeed work. Seems the launcher is just broken... I used the executable but I also got a few random crashes at some points. Still, at least I could play it.