Launcher keeps crashing on startup

[Aileron]

Hi, I recently bumped into some Automation material when browsing the internets and decided to fire up the game after it had been laying several months unplayed on my computer. However, when I tried to start the game via the launcher, it just informed me that "Automation Launcher has stopped working". No screens or anything show up. I uninstalled the game and downloaded a new launcher, installed it but it kept saying the same thing. I tried reinstalling the launcher several times but to no avail. I also tried using the Automation Cleaner tool (which is ironically giving some errors itself) but that didn't help either. Also tried downloading the game content and installing it but doesn't seem to help the launcher. Some compatibility modes have also been tried.

[Killrob]

That does sound weird indeed. Does the actual launcher crash or does the newly launched game crash? Do you get any log.txt and KeeEngineLog.txt in you Documents/Automation folder?

[Aileron]

The launcher crashes before even opening itself. I can't see any launcher windows pop up, just the "Automation Launcher has stopped working"-error. Making things even more weird, I don't have an Automation-folder in my documents. Should be in C:\Users\myname\Documents, right?

[Killrob]

You should not have a folder there if the launcher doesn't launch, no, that one is first created when the actual game is launched. This sounds like some other program hindering the launcher from launching. Could you check your anti-virus software if that might interfere?

[Aileron]

Using ESET Smart Security 5, however disabling it doesn't affect the launcher in any way. Still crashing.

[Killrob]

Any kind of RAID setup you're running? Any settings which have changed since last time you were able to play? If not even the cleaner tool or the launcher work something goes seriously wrong there, never really heard of something like it, apart from someone trying to install it on Mac OS

[Aileron]

I did get a new motherboard and a CPU a while ago, had to reinstall Windows after that. IIRC I had an SSD back when I first installed Automation so I guess that doesn't bother it. Tried installing the launcher to both SSD and HDD now anyway, but that doesn't seem to solve the problem.

By the way, here's my dxdiag, just in case you need it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zx4s4epledfcn8o/DxDiag.txt