Launcher.exe closing after 5 seconds, no error message

[Lucas_From_Hell]

I've browsed here and through other forums for solutions to this really annoying issue but I've found none at all.

The plot is: rusty mug-flier buys the Russian version (physical copy), installs Steam and Cliffs of Dover, ran the additional installers (only decided to do so after reinstalling it once; all told me everything was up to date, but reinstalled/repaired them anyway, no change in behaviour by our lovely stray exe), glances in amusement at the rather cool artwork in the box cover, stares deeply into RAF roundels eyes and, after a second's hesitation, clicks on it. Steam window shows up claiming it's preparing to launch Il-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover (tear stars forming upon reading the name), little spinning blue ring appears next to cursor (Vista 32-bit, all up-to-date)... *dramatic pause, eyes wide open with anxiety* Little blue ring disappears... *"coming at any time now"* ... *longer pause* ...*popping noise, racing heartbeat, flashing icon on toolbar, cursor rushes to check it out* ...Skype: "Hey"

...and that's it. No sign of the Launcher under the Processes tab, no error message, and I had a nice chat over Skype and went to bed laughing at some joke.

...but I'm still sort of annoyed by the Launcher.

So, just to clear some things up for anyone interested (rrrrrright.) in helping or at least reading this to kill time until Top Gear or whatever's on, I'm not an AVG user (not that it'd've mattered now anyway, since the patch covered it), I'm running Avira AntiVir. Launcher.exe does open, as checked with Task Manager open, at the very time the mystical blue ring's there (taking only around 16K in memory or so), but it only lasts for a few seconds, before vanishing without any notice. So basically, it opens, and it closes, and well, that's quite it, really.

Rig meets the specs.

Any guesses?