I play German and have earned Iron Cross 2nd Class and 1st Class and only once the Blue Max and that was when I had gotten 80 kills. Can not remember ever being promoted by the game, but have done so to my self by hex editing the campaign files.

Though for the last two years I assign my self as Hauptman just to be able to tweak the missions for all flights. Balloon defense always needs to be set lower then the game and CAP always needs to be set higher for the bombers coming in.

What are some of the problems you are having with Win7? Some have known fixes.