I have windows 7 and noticed that when I clicked "practice offline", an error appears that tells me to install warbirds 277r3 build2. But I already have this on my computer. In fact, I installed it before installing FH. By the way I have FH 1.68 (I removed 1.67)
I have pinpointed the problem, I removed FH and warbirds and I deleted the directory and started fresh. After installing WB i installed FH 168, I noticed that the game throws the error when I switch to direct3D mode. 2D seems to work fine
I have no Win7 and don't know the solution to how to help you, but I'm asking you to tell us about solution if you find it.
Are you running in compatibilty mode (like XP SP3), and have you disabled visual themes? Right-click on the new FHLauncher.exe and set those options.
If it hasn't been disseminated to you yet, check to see if you have IP 89.108.124.170 in your server list.