Buharo,
I am having the same issues. My hard drive crashed so I had to upgrade to Vista- such a buggy platform for gamers as I am learning- and I was missing an IL-2 CD from my original set up (AEP), I was looking for lock-on and thought I'd kill two birds by purchasing the collection- yikes, what a crappy collection, and as you said the readme are from the initial release of the products without the patches and updates IE IL-2 1.0, FB 1.0.,etc.
I had the same problem with the CD not starting the install screen, did the attempted fix as you described and found the broken link on my desktop. I am able to launch lock on and PF but cannot run the PF+FP+AEP aspect even though the CD and the shortcut imply that it should work. I found and installed the old copy of PF and then did the reinstall again. This time, I got the PF icon with the shortcut tag of PF+FP+AEP, but it still will not launch. grrr- two hours wasted. Heck, even if the game launched fine I was pissed they did not even include the 4 year old updates on any of the collection, estimate many more hrs digging for all the updates (not to mention that the patches for the merged versions are incremental, without one file to bring me from the initial release to the current version).
The only thing I can figure is that if the AEP and FB is not previously installed then you are screwed- the damm 5 CD collection does not include AEP or FB, and the fine 5 CD collection lacked ANY written manuals- just an empty slot where the manual should be.
Now, I already paid for all of these products other than lock on and have paid once again for a useless product- other than the lock on aspect, which is of interest to me.
Consequently, my 78 year old Dad is without a wingman for over a month now and I am real frustrated, ready to discard all of my UBI games and want my $20 back. I mean, one would think UBI would care enough about my money to meet my needs by doing the basic, simple and honest business practice. Instead, I have to jump through hoops and try to figure all of this stuff out, and dig to find what I need by begging for help from other players, not their lacking support FAQ- no mention of the 'collection' on their web presence at all. grrr. The UBI marketing twits figured they would make a quick buck on this product. DO NOT BUY THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION!
Perhaps one of the wise Forum visitors can help us find a fix so we can play the merged game. HELP
