New to GOG. Bought Heroes of Might and Magic 2. Prompted me to download an .exe file. When I click the file it just has a "downloading" progress bar that doesn't move or do anything.

What's the deal?

Did you download (and run) the offline installer?
(see attached picture)

New since 2013? And your profile says you already played HoMM 3 before through Galaxy?

What was the .exe file called?

Think I downloaded FTL back then. Worked fine. GOG_Galaxy_Heroes_of_Might_and_Magic_2_Gold.exe

Ok so you clicked on that blue button in the game download page. The file you downloaded will install the Galaxy client for you, and download/install the game with it. That file doesn't yet contain the actual game I think.

So now you have two options:

1. Do you want to install and play the game with a Steam-like client, called GOG Galaxy? If yes, then run that exe file, and download/install the game you want with the Galaxy client that that file installed.

2. If, however, you just want to install the game without any additional clients, then:
- delete that file you downloaded
- go to the same place where you downloaded it, but instead of clicking the blue button, click below it on the "Download offline backup installers", under it is the installer file for the actual game. Download that file, and run it.

It installs the game for you normally and after that you can start the game from the Windows Start menu.

So with GOG games you nowadays have basically two options: install and play your games through the Galaxy client, or install with the offline backup installer and run the game without a client. I prefer the latter way for single-player games.

EDIT: Oh, forgot: your profile page says you have already played that game through Galaxy, so I presume you already installed the Galaxy client, and installed and played the game through it?

But the downloaded file from the Blue Button doesn't do anything. It just opens a progress bar that never moves.

If you haven't used GOG in a long time, then uninstall GOG Galaxy from your PC.

Then reinstall Galaxy. You can use www.gog.com/galaxy or the blue link should work.

I don't know why it behaves like that because I don't use Galaxy (I install my GOG games only with the standalone offline installers).

Maybe you should contact GOG support, unless Tallima's suggestion fixes the problem (ie. you have some older Galaxy installation there already, which is somehow blocking the installation of the new one).