[8FS_Bulau]

I installed IL-2 =works fine
Updated to 4.08m =works fine
Installed a bunch of mods=works fine
Updated to 4.09m =Loads to 95% at spash screen

How can you install mods into 4.08m? The unmodded game won't recognize the mods, so you will still have 4.08m. You need to install a mod activator before you can add mods, and you should do that after patching to 4.09m

A common reason for the 95% lockup after patching to 4.09m, for older sound hardware, is the new dlls in the 4.09m patch:
mg_snd.dll
mg_snd_sse.dll

The fix is to save those two files after patching to 4.08m, but before patching to 4.09m. Then, after patching to 4.09m, put the saved 4.08m files back, overwriting the new ones from 4.09m.