The Witcher - Authentication Still Down

Irian writes a frustrated email about the authentication servers for The Witcher 1 still being down despite promises to get them back up a couple of weeks back. This is preventing people who recently installed the game from updating the game and, Irian points out, is ironic given CD Projekt's stance on DRM. Thread on GOG, as an example.
More information.

Thanks for making light of the thread that I started-up a bit ago on GOG before TW2 dropped, while having trouble trying to get TW1 Retail patched up to Enhanced Edition.

I tried it on an ancient German retail version on Win 7.

1. DVD install
2. patch 1.4, language pack(s) and the 2 bonus adventures into the same directory
3. install
4. DL patch 1.5 in other directory
5. install

It worked at the first try. The updater didn't even try to connect to the server. The DVD is no longer needed.

Manual registration still doesn't work. The server closes the connection after step 2.

Strange. Why did it work for me while users in several forums have massive issues?

I tried w/ the files from way, way back - when they first released EE upgrade and Patch 1.5.

I'mma try w/ the files on The Witcher's site here - see if those are different and work:
http://en.thewitcher.com/the-witcher/1/

We'll see what happens.

The newsbit has been updated.

Oh, snap - that worked.
The new release on that page for Patch 1.4 on that page was really all I needed.

I just took the other old Language pack files I already had and whatnot that I had…voila.

Thanks for the update, I wouldn't have tried to download the patch again otherwise.

Guess I should have posted something here after I figured out the solution; hum. The only part that still annoys me is that they never bothered to reply via support; rather they sent a terse note telling me to wait till they fixed the registration. I only noticed it because they changed the links to the patch and the hash (md5sum) no longer matched the old value.