About the laucher issue, I guess I've found why the previous bat file wasn't working.
When you right click the shortcut, you go to properties > options and then look if the option that says something like "use old console (requires restart) is checked.
I don't know, but new computers and/ or new operative systems, like windows 10, might use a new version of the launcher.
One thing I just remembered, is that when I tried to play Lord of the Rings mod for RTW, the launcher was also a bat file and it didn't work, which was strange, since I could play it when I had my old PC (windows vista and later windows 7) and this one, 4 years old, I dind't play RTW when it had windows 8 (from factory), mas windows 10 seems to have a problem. I don't really know if that's the case, since all bat files are working fine with Medieval 2 total War mods, since the begginning.