When I start skirmish battle - no matter what exp level I choose (0, 1k,... etc) I always start with something like 23600 exp. It began since 0.89 version, but I thought it's temporary bug - how to fix it?

Could be somehow related to save game issues. Can you send rwr_game.log? You'd find it in C:\Users\pasik\AppData\Roaming\Running with rifles, replace pasik with your Windows account name.

Mine appears to say this in the end of the log when I start new quick match on Vaaleakoski with 6k XP:

I have only config and settings files in that folder. There is savegame subfolder, but also without rwr_game.log

Hmm.. what if you copy the config and settings somewhere as a backup, delete that folder completely and re-run the game? The game will start the configuration tool, go to game from there. Try if quick matches work any better now -- if they do, you can just quit and set your backed up config and settings back to where they belong, and continue from there.

Definitely sounds like a write permission issue of some sort.

Interesting effect appeared I did as you say and really now I can start quick battles with 0 exp. But - when I try to choose exp level different from 0 (1k...7k - I tried few times) - I still get 0 exp at start and 0/0 men under my command.

I take it the log still doesn't get created?

Yes, there is still no logfile.
What I did today - deleted folder in appdata/roaming, run the game as admin - and after that when I started quick battle and chose 4k exp - I got right these 4k exp and 0/4 men under command. I said "great!" but it was too early - now when I try to start any other quick match no matter what exp number I choose - I have 4k. And no logfile

Hmh.

Is it Windows 7 you've got? I need to figure out how I can get this reproducing, gonna try a few things. Non-admin rights seemed fine here yesterday, but not absolutely sure now if the game had been installed before that with admin rights..

Yes, Win7 Home Basic.
I had RWR installed for half a year, and everything was fine before 0.89 version. But maybe it's because of some windows updates - but how it's possible I don't know... No ideas... If you think it could help, I can reinstall game with admin rights.
Other games which create files in appdata/roaming like Minecraft are working fine as usual.

0.89 (or 0.88?) had the savegame folder changed from C:\ProgramData\Running with rifles to there under roaming user area at least.

I just tried on my laptop, had RWR uninstalled, enabled User Access Control to the strictest, restarted and logged in as a non-admin user, deleted the data folder in Roaming generated yesterday, installed RWR (installer requested for admin rights elevation, entered my usual account credentials), config started after launching, set it and exited, and ran RWR using the Start menu shortcut. Went for start quick match, Vaaleakoski, started a few matches with different XP settings.

Works here: %appdata%\Running with rifles folder (the one in Roaming) becomes generated fine, including rwr_config.log, rwr_game.log, config.xml, profile.dat, settings.xml and savegames folder, with battle0.save and _default.save.

Looking into properties of Running with rifles folder, in Security tab, groups and user names list SYSTEM, test (my account name), Administrators, test appears to have all permissions set except Special permissions.

Can you check the Running with rifles folder on your system, what does the Security tab say?

EDIT: oh, one thing more, do you install the game using Desura or the standalone installer?