Thank you for the great advice. I installed W7 64 bit on a Raptor h/d.
Only played about 70 minutes but game seems fine so far. W7 was the fix..
The only updates are what ever steam installed.
I am very happy at the moment
.
Game appears to run about as smooth (at least too me that is ) as IL2 did on a my older P4 machine 6000 Geforce .Which is very playable.
Time will tell
Thanks again .
Johnny Walker