Hi black1, I would firstly suggest that you repost your thread in the main forum as the 'Pilot's Lounge' can be a bit of a back-water as far as 'assistance required' is concerned.
With regard to your impending
Cliffs of Dover install, I would suggest that if installing under Windows 7, you avoid the default 'Program Files' location because of Windows over-zealous protection and install to a location of
your choosing, preferrably on a different hard drive (SSD anyone!). Then allow Steam to do its' thing and update your install.
With regard to optimizing and learning your game there are no manuals as such and the manual included with the game is sketchy at best. However there are several excellent threads, not least this one by Blackdog_kt:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=24782
and here by 2GFlea:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=24547
or on the subject of optimizing and performance (
read below first):
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=29004
As I'm sure you've noticed, the community is currently awaiting the release of the new beta patch (sometime next week?) which should address certain performance issues and fix a few '
broken' items in the game. If this proves successful it will then become available as an auto update through Steam and will probably require a different optimization path. My advice would therefore be to go with what you have and wait until the general release of the patch through Steam before starting to optimize.
Finally, (I apologise for the length of reply) despite having been a long time follower of IL2 and these forums, I am unable to pass on the current status of your old squad.
Good luck and welcome back.
~S~