I tried these:

1. Run Launcher.exe as an administrator
-> did not work

2. Run Launcher.exe in WinXP-mode
-> did not work

3. Changed display settings
-> did not work

4. Updated star-force drivers
-> did not work

5. Loaded patch
-> did not work

6. - copied whole BA2 folder contents to a different location
- uninstalled BA2
- started BA2 in the new folder

Even after then it didn't work when I tried to start is using Launcher.exe. But when I went to BIN-directory and used BA2.exe instead it finally started to work.

My guess there is something wrong with the Launcher.exe file not the actual BA2.exe game binary file???

Right click the game exe and change compatability mode to win98/2000 and it will start for vista.