Games : Why does my Minecraft launcher not launch the game?

Background:

Slightly over a month ago, Minecraft suddenly stopped working on my computer. There was no strange behavior of any kind prior to that. I have tried a couple of usual fixes, such as re-downloading and re-installing both Minecraft and Java (64-bit) itself. Unfortunately, neither of these fixes did anything. Cleaning the registry for leftovers from possibly corrupt Java re-install didn't help either. Then I have checked the firewall, to see if it conflicts with Minecraft or Java, and it doesn't. At last, I checked processes in task manager, and found that when I try to launch the game with the launcher, it creates a javaw.exe process for a split second, and the process immediately disappears.

What I do during launch:

I use the newest minecraft.exe official launcher (alternative Windows download, without built-in java). After I click the launcher to load, the cursor indicates that it's loading a file, and nothing happens. As indicated by the background above, javaw.exe seemingly closes immediately after the process starts up.

So my question is, how can I get Minecraft back up and running?

My PC Specs:

HP Envy -15t Laptop

Windows 8.1 64-bit OS

Intel Core i7-4510U CPU @ 2.00GHz 2.60GHz

8GB RAM