For some reason the game always starts up minimized to the taskbar. It's just a bit annoying to have to click it every time I want to start, especially if I'm using a controller. Odd I haven't seen anyone else have this problem.

I'm running on Windows 7 if that matters.

Try changing the graphics setting to full screen.

Never heard of this before, either...

It's already at full screen. Even if I switch to borderless it just boots up with the game blinking in the task bar and I still have to take care of that.

Doesn't seem to happen when I try to boot it up through GOG Galaxy, which I'd prefer to not do.

I first launched GOG Galaxy after I installed the game (from the web download). It then updated the game but also hijacked the shortcut so it always launched in GOG Galaxy. I edited the start menu shortcut so it didn't do that. Maybe I should go back and try to fix it again.

Edit:

After some checking, I realize this problem only happens when I boot the game from the shortcut that's pinned to the main start menu. If I boot it from "all programs" or the shortcut that's in the GOG Games folder it comes up full screen just fine. It's a problem with the front start menu.

Edit 2:

Okay now this seems to happen no matter what shortcut I boot it from. For some reason only GOG Galaxy and the actual exe work without starting minimized.

I always start from galaxy, it is just my habit. Like I always start Steam games from Steam or Origin games from Origin.

If I have game which is both in cd and in origin and I start it from cd, I will have problem, don't know why but it is probably the same as galaxy.

So, just go the the game .exe (C:\GOG Games\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\bin\x64\witcher3.exe) and make a shortcut from it to send to your desktop. Set it to Run as Administrator.