Identical issue. First time running new Launcher, status bar stuck at "preparing". Closed and re-opened several times, with no change. Left it run overnight (~6 hours) with no change. Rebooted. Ran Launcher, which appeared to work normally. Waited 10 minutes, then let it run unattended for another ~4 hours. Came back to find no change. Checked task manager, and found 2 instances of MinecraftLauncher.exe and 1 instance of Javaw.exe. Java was taking 90+% of CPU cycles and ~275M of memory, but nothing was displayed on the screen, and no icon was in the taskbar. Forced everything closed via the Task Manager. Restarted the Launcher, and it's once again stuck at "preparing".
Smokey Behr
Identical issue. First time running new Launcher, status bar stuck at "preparing". Closed and re-opened several times, with no change. Left it run overnight (~6 hours) with no change. Rebooted. Ran Launcher, which appeared to work normally. Waited 10 minutes, then let it run unattended for another ~4 hours. Came back to find no change. Checked task manager, and found 2 instances of MinecraftLauncher.exe and 1 instance of Javaw.exe. Java was taking 90+% of CPU cycles and ~275M of memory, but nothing was displayed on the screen, and no icon was in the taskbar. Forced everything closed via the Task Manager. Restarted the Launcher, and it's once again stuck at "preparing".