One thing to check: Did you log on the right server? You'll have more than the official server in your list, if you log on a different one by accident, you won't see your chars, of course. I saw that happen to several people already.
Well seems like Vista was the bugger who snatched all my Characters.
Running on non-admin account and DSUpdate now needs an administrator authentication to run so naturally (as i know now) there were no characters on my admin account.
Whats there to say about that ?
All is fine, W*ndows kicks a** as i cant remove the Admin Auth from DSUpdate and i now launch Freelancer from the normal EXE again.
:angry2::angry2::angry2:
Thread can be closed.
*bangsheadonwall* a lot of times in a row ...
PS: Thank you all for the very quick replies and the helpful suggestions!