Well first off, I eventually got Ryzom working, but I had to jerry-rig it after the patch. I'll tell you what I did, then maybe someone could tell me what I should of done.
The install went great. I installed the game to my user directory as I do with a few other programs that are more than a couple years old. Otherwise Win7 causes a few permission errors.
After I ran the patch through, I get a screen that says please wait while Ryzom starts back up - it never did. I started it manually by double clicking on the client_ryzom_rd.exe. The program then hangs on an error that it can't find a font package.
Things I tried that DIDN'T work on Win7.....
1. Reinstalling and Re-patching
2. Deleting the unpack directory and the game would not re-patch... same font error.
3. Setup the Ryzom directory as an excluded directory for my virus scanner, deleted the unpack directory and the game still wouldn't repatch... same font error.
What I did that DID work ....
1. Copied all the contents of the Ryzom/Unpack directory to the main directory Ryzom/
2. Copied all the contents of the Ryzom/Unpack directory to the data directory Ryzom/data
3. Copied all the font packages (*.ttf, *.afm, *.pfm, *.pfb) of the Ryzom/Unpack directory to the font directory Ryzom/data/fonts
4. Rename Ryzom/unpack to Ryzom/unpack-old
5. Restart Ryzom and allow the game to patch one more time for 12.4 more files.
6. Copy all the contents from the Ryzom/Unpack directory to the main directory Ryzom/
I really wasn't sure which file went where. It's a bit overkill... but it works.
I just have to say though, in-game, Ryzom has been an amazing experience. My hat's off to you. I am really amazed at how dynamic the ecosystem and creature AI is.