CTD while playing SH3

[conus00]

I just finally got back to playing SHIII and I am encountering very annoying random CTDs. I know this horse has been beaten to death and, trust me, I HAVE searched...

My problem is very specific, and, frankly, very odd...
I really believe that it is, somehow, connected to compatibility/playability of SHIII under Windows 7.
Before you start asking questions I would like to make few things clear:
-I have FRESH installations of both SHIII and GWX3
-I didn't install in default directory (all my games are in D:\Games\blah blah)
-I cleaned registry before installation and followed the instructions to the letter

Now here are my reasons why I do believe that the Win7 is the culprit:
I have identical PC configuration as I had before, I'm running identical MODs in identical order as before. The ONLY thing which changed was moving from Windows XP Professional to Win7 Ultimate.

The game was running flawlessly under XPs and I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of to make it run under Win7. Multiple re-installations, trying to run sh3.exe under different Compactibility Modes, I even (hides before thrown stones ) tried cracked version of SHIII.

ABSOLUTELY NO DICE!!!!!!

There has to be something I'm missing (maybe one of the mods is not "Win7 friendly")...
I would really appreciate any help. I consider modded SHIII the best of the Silent Hunter series (even to modded SH4 and the, still POS, SH5). Please help me figure out solution.

Thanks!

-LJ