I'm sure you'll have no trouble. There's plenty of physical copies floating around, and if you don't mind digital - as far as I know, everywhere that it is digitally available it comes with 1.4 and no Starforce.
Make sure that you get a new, rather than used, copy if you can, since that'll guarantee that you're getting a Starforce-free version. I suggest trying at Amazon via one of the Subsim banner links (great for the site
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No issues with it on Win 7 afaik. I've only tried it on here briefly, but I hear everyone else is just fine. You can also give SH4 with Operation Monsun a try (it models the entire Atlantic, Med, Black Sea, Indian Ocean campaigns for U-boats), since SH4 is a little less finicky with stuff like higher resolutions, performance and compatibility. Actually at this point all three recent titles are worth owning for the mods.