https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43910
--- Comment #60 from Storm Engineer hewanci@gmail.com --- Oh, and running the non-launcher exe also fixed a tiny little annoyance I had: When battle net updates, clicking "restart Battle.net now" used to just close it and not restart, but now the restart works too.
A friend of mine guess the launcher's purpose might be to make updating possible on Windows by requesting admin permissions - which is not needed for Wine obviously.