Annoying problem on game loading

[Pips]

My Il-2 1946 was getting very cluttered with skins, new aircraft etc, so I decided to uninstall it and start from scratch with a fresh install from the DVD. And it brought home a problem I've had forever, but until now simply put up with it.

So I thought I would ask here to see if others have had the same problem and if there's a solution. Other than this one problem the game performs fine.

When I start IL-2, it opens at the Main Menu (intro movie disabled). Music is playing but the mouse cursor is frozen, so I can't select any buttons. I have to Alt>Esc to drop the game to desktop and then click on the icon in the toolbar to reopen it. Cursor then works as normal. This used to always happen in my old install, as well as the new re-install, which id patched to 4.09beta.

Any suggestions?

My system is a Intel D CPU 3.00Ghz with 2 gig RAM, Windows XP patched to SP3, Radeon ATI HD4850.