I MADE IT!
Two things you need:
1. a clean download (no corrupt files) and I have to thank a good soul who let me d/l his clean files ( won't give away his name otherwise he will get flooded with the same demands)
2. the courage to start from scratch!
I did as most of us: cleaned out my previous modded version and installed the different UIs over it. THIS DOES NOT WORK. I had a completely cluttered version from the first day I started with IL2 (yes!). When I finally erased it (keeping just the user files in order to have my settings and the config.ini), I found out that there were many remnants of previous mods stuck somewhere in hidden places. I used Revo Uninstaller then CCleaner to get rid of all that stuff (all of them are freeware) and cleaned out my registry with jv16 Powertools 2009 (works well for me over all these years, worth the money).
Installed everything following Monguse's description step by step. In order to be safe, I used Winrar to decompress everything which gave me a clean install.
Important if you use Winrar, you have to click on install.bat after you decompressed UI 1.2. This way you will see those mods you have to eliminate or to disable according to the picture in Monguse's install manual.
It worked immediately perfectly without any dreaded CRT=2 failed timeout=1 message.
A little sidenote: In order to be able to use 4.09m I installed the Warbirds of prey switcher which works well.
I DID IT :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :yay: :yay: :yay:
Thanks to all and especially to Mr M who let me have his files! :drinking: :friends:
Cheers,
Eckhart