AnrDaemon

And the coordinates in the overworld - ?

The problem is that my setup do not use any drive letter at all for the partition in question.
This is done specifically for a better portability of the setup - I could move my Games directory and its sub-directories anywhere at will (f.e. where I have more free space) and still keep everything running from the same central point without an issue. As long as that "everything" is not trying to "play smart" and pretend it "knows better" how the things should be done at the filesystem level.
Also a lot of drive letters flashing in file manager (I have 4 only physical disks installed, plus what-do-I-know about cardreaders and rogue removables) by itself is not healthy in my opinion.

Test it yourself. Use a Windows VM, follow the steps outlined. You don't need to start the game proper, a crash would be indicative enough, since logs and game directories would be created already.

1.7.10 is also affected.
I'm NOT going to run bundled mammoth's dump old versions of Java on my system.

Even more laughable, the first error you would get is 'Unable to locate the Java runtime.'
Which is located exactly where it should. But you'll have to manually install runtime somewhere else to let the game run.

1. Get a Windows system with two data partitions (usually, `C:` and `D:`). Assuming the directory where you want your MC profiles is `D:\Games` (create it).
2. Run `mountvol` to identify the UNC path of the `D:` drive. (Let's pretend it's `\\?\Volume{6833c423-2223-11e4-b07d-806e6f6e6963}\`)
3. Run 'mklink /J C:\Games \\?\Volume{6833c423-2223-11e4-b07d-806e6f6e6963}\Games`.
4. Go to disk manager and remove the letter from drive `D:`. Reboot the system if prompted.
5. Test that the `C:\Games` directory is available and listing contents of your former `D:\Games` directory.
6. Install Minecraft launcher into C:\Games\Minecraft.
7. Create new game profile pointing to C:\Games\Minecraft\Profile.
8. Launch it. Oopss, the logs and saves are dumped into C:\Games\Minecraft intead of the profile directory.

The problem is easily reproducible, if Minecraft data directory is a junction/reparse point from partition without assigned drive letter.

All your "community support" can help with is to find a "reboot" button in Start menu and suggest to check again after that. Trust me I can do that without external guidance.

Given the obvious crash and the qualified diagnostics I performed (given my 20+ years experience in IT support and 15+ years in programming I can say it was qualified), I can surely call it a bug in the code. I can even tell you why it is crashing. But you are not a programmer and won't understand the explanation.

Still not fixed, and perhaps made worse. See MC-222198

Given the ongoing migration to Microsoft account, the problem become more important.

Legacy launcher won't work with M$ account.

MCL-1443 seems related.

I'm using UNICODE font containing these characters. Thank you. This is why I wrote the report like that.
The renderer should at least render "UNKNOWN CHARACTER" glyph in place.

If you need help reproducing or testing the issue, please tell me.

Did that, but nothing changed.
Files still created in the launcher directory.
On top of that, launcher is unable to find the bundled Java runtime.

While
C:\Games\Minecraft> type runtime\jre-x64\.version
1.8.0_51

Launcher version 2.1.10837

Tried it on a different machine and it worked there. The only difference with my system is that C:\Games is a volume mount point. The question is, what are you doing that break over volume borders?

I can't find the downloads for that version anywhere.
Mind explain the "upgrading" moment?

Helloo? Can I have a Christmas gift in the form of a working Minecraft at last, please?

LAUNCHER
2.1.9616

Tuesday, November 12, 2019, 14:58:36
ae1caa5360c733a20205fbe2920e2640d4ffc3cf

Not fixed. Working directory still set to the directory of the launcher rather than the game profile directory.

Anybody? What's the status? The launcher is unusable as it is.

As I said, logs directory created in the parent directory.
For modded Minecraft, some more directories are created with mod settings.
This was never the case for Java launcher.

It is deleted even if there was no crash. Just from launching the game.

v. 2.1.5387

For migrated profiles, profile name is stored in two places: the "profiles" object's profile's property name and the value of profile's "name" property.

I.e.

"Forge 1.7.10 SFS!" : {
  "name" : "Forge 1.7.10 SFS!"
}

Launching the game will set "name" property to an empty string. Immediately.