IL-2 1946 won't start anymore..?

[Paulski]

Some time ago I bought IL-2 1946, and everything worked fine, except that the game (for me) was unplayable with just a keyboard. So I uninstalled it and waited for the day I'd buy a joystick.

So now I finally got a joystick. I dug up my IL-2 disc and installed it again. But the game won't start at all, while I haven't changed anything on my pc from the last time it worked.

When I want to start the game I just get the hourglass cursor for a few seconds and then nothing happens! I've been searching on the internet but couldn't find anything that works for me. I also tried to re-install it a few times, last time I even intalled it outside the 'program files' folder although I'm on Windows XP.

I just can't believe how it's possible that the game won't start anymore, while it worked perfectly just few months ago..? I hope there's a solution to this problem, because I kinda bought the joystick especially for this game So does anybody know what the problem could be?