While I'm waiting on UPS guy...

[Ryanhabs]

So I had a HDD up and die on me about 2 weeks ago.  I re-installed winXP pro 64bit and got everything back up and running but since I lost my original OEM windows disk and key I had to buy a new OS to have a key to validate it and get rid of the 30 day timer.  I decided to get Windows 7 professional 64.  Anything I need to know about running oblivion and programs like it with windows 7 or is it pretty straight forward like XP was?

[Hitman69]

Not really, just make sure that you run every single program/game in administrator mode, to avoid problems.

On my win7 x64 (nearly) every game works fine that way.

[Dreamer102]

And DO NOT install your Oblivion to the "Program Files" directory.

Windows 7 will deny you administrative rights to your stuff (making everything READ-ONLY repeatedly!!!) and some mods will not work correctly if certain files can't be written to.

[Symon]

You will be well served by NOT installing anything you intend to mod or customize in 'program files'. Unless you are happy with adjusting 7's security, it will 'protect' anything installed there from interference by someone as unimportant as the computer's owner.

[Ryanhabs]

someone as unimportant as the computer's owner.

HAHA, that is just funny.  So basically instead of installing it like I did with xp, c:\programs\bethesida\oblivion  I want it to look like c:\bethesida\oblivion.  Bascially just skipping adding it to the programs.  Correct?

@Hitman:  Yeah, I had remembered reading an atricle about the run as admin thing with win 7.  Thanks for the reminder though.

[Hitman69]

Yes, or you could make a games folder, like I did. (C:\games\bethesda\oblivion)

Also, you'll notice you have two program-files folders, program files and program files(x86). 32-bit programs, like oblivion will, by default be placed in the x86 folder.

No biggie, though, as the PC can differentiate between 32-bit and 64-bit programs fine, by itself.

[Slammer64]

I install all my games to C:\Games under Win 7 Pro, no problems then.

[Ryanhabs]

So it seems there are a few new things I will have to get used to with the new OS.  Doesn't seem terrible.  As a system builder I never had to play around with windows 7... just install it and make sure it booted.  Thanks for the info guys.  Its much appreciated.

[Dreamer102]

For windows 7, I recommend you use an app called "Gamebooster". It really helps shut down unnecessary processes that windows 7 runs in the background. It shuts em down and frees up cpu and ram and also restores the processes at the click of a button.

Some of these were never an issue with win-xp but of course...this is the new "Vista" soooo.....

[Ryanhabs]

Do you really think I'll need that for oblivion?  I have a quad core extreme running @ 3.98GHz and 16GB of DDR3 ram.  I know windows 7 will use a bit more than XP did but do you think I'd notice with that much to spare?

[Hitman69]

Do you really think I'll need that for oblivion?  I have a quad core extreme running @ 3.98GHz and 16GB of DDR3 ram.  I know windows 7 will use a bit more than XP did but do you think I'd notice with that much to spare?

I don't think so. My game runs fine, I have a crappy graphic's card, 'only' 4Gigs of RAM, although I do have an i7-quad-core. I have never used Gamebooster.

However, concerning the quad-thing, Oblivion won't make full use of it. The game doesn't like multi-threading much.

[Ryanhabs]

yeah... which is sad as even when it came out the dual cores were popular in the newer machines.  Wish it atleast made use of those.  Oh well, theres always skyrim 

[sora3]

I used Windows 7 on a single core Pentium III machine and it worked easily even though the video card was going WTF is this shit.

[Ryanhabs]

uggh!  Everything is running like a champ... Thank god I was smart enough to move my OBMM mods folder to an external drive so I dont have to create all those omods again! Just have to load them.  :-\