Bben's Reinstall Procedure

[bben46]

The Knights of the Nine and all of the other DLCs are just mods and can be installed or uninstalled at any time. Shivering Isles includes a true patch, so it is not a mod, although it does include a mod. SI actually makes changes in the Oblivion.exe and Oblivion.esm which the other DLCs don't.

 

Once you have installed Si, you cannot uninstall it - although you can deactivate it by unchecking it in the mod list. Deactivating does not remove the parts that were changed in the Oblivion.exe or Oblivion.esp. The only way to remove those is to completely reinstall the game.

[SylvanRuin]

I spoke too soon. Oblivions completely ruined :(

 

I shouldnt have done this :(

[BlueGunk]

Thanks for such a clear, concise and completely useful guide. I used it for my reinstallation after I encountered the evil Win 7 Program File (x86) folder horrors, and it went perfectly. I followed it faithfully step by step and it was impossible to go wrong. You have been a massive help and thanks for taking the time to write the guide.

 

I have one weeny comment: for others in the future please could you add a little more detail on the reinstallation steps for OBMM - I floundered with a half-populated OBMM until I remembered I had backed up the mods directory and was then able to copy them directly into OBMM's folders. It all came good but was a tad puzzling for a while!

 

Thanks once again from a very happy and relieved Oblivionite.

 

Clive

[cl0ck_work]

Could you perhaps make a video? I can understand things better visually.

[bben46]

@Bluegunk: I will look into that on the next revision, but this is actually just for reinstalling Oblivion, the OBMM part is optional

 

@cl0ck_Work. Nope. If I did that I would have to remake the video every time I made a small change or correction. And I don't have time for that. If you can, why don't you do it?

[MelloMan]

Help!

On my old laptop, I played Oblivion for many-many hours. Did all the side quests, mastered all guilds and skills, closed all the gates, and so on. I loaded the Knights of Nine and other buy-ons (Fighter’s Stronghold, Mehrunes’ Razor, and so on) except Shivering Isles. I was almost done when I needed to give up my old laptop so I downloaded all the saved games – just in case I wanted to start back up again.

I recently bought a new kickass laptop with Windows 7, loaded Oblivion and finished the main quest and messed around a bit and then decided to buy and load-up Shivering Isles. That is when things went bad.

 

Now when I try to launch the game, the main menu comes up briefly, then the “Oblivion will now detect your video hardware and set video options accordingly.” dialog box comes up. Then the “Video hardware unrecognized. Video quality settings defaulting to Medium Quality.” dialog box comes up. After that, a Windows dialog box pops up “Oblivion Launcher has stopped working. Windows is checking for a solution to the problem” then “Oblivion launcher has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.” The only option is to “close program”.

 

In my search for a solution, I found discussion on the “Oblivion.ini file” configuration file. I can delete this file and re launch the game. It goes through the same sequence; detect video, setting to medium, and then down it goes. If I leave the “ini” file and launch the game, it doesn’t even do the detect video and setting to medium sequence, it goes directly to the “Oblivion launcher has stopped working” dialog box, then Windows shuts the program down.

 

Here is my configuration:

Dell XPS L702X

NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M with latest driver

Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit (Service Pack 1)

Direct X version 11.0

 

Here is what I have tried so far:

I uninstalled, installed several times in different ways– same result. When I say “same result”, I mean I get the four dialog boxes described above with and without the “ini” file.

I have tried to run in Administrator and compatibility modes (Windows 7 feature) – same result.

I reverted back to an old video driver (which was a desperation move since the game ran before) – same result. I have latest driver loaded now.

 

I saved a restore point and then went back to the laptop’s original configuration – same result. I did this with only the basic game, that is, without Shivering Isles. This was a pain since I thought I could simply move back the restore point I had set before I did this but as it turned out, I needed to reload everything I had previously loaded.

 

I’ve been searching for other ideas when I found this one. I followed you instructions – up to the point where it craps out.

This is what I have done:

Uninstalled Oblivion.

Deleted the folders and files as directed.

Spent another $30 and bought and ran Uniblue Registry Booster.

Ran RegEdit and looked for and deleted anything with Oblivion.

Ran Windows disk clean-up and a program I have called “windows cleanup” a shareware program my IT guy at work uses.

Ran Defrag.

Installed basic game from the CD in new folder as directed. Still craps out.

This is very frustrating and confusing since the stupid thing worked fine ONCE ALREADY. It seems Shivering Isles did something but I’m not sure what since I can’t even get the basic game (without any add ons, mods, or saved games in the directory) to run now.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[bben46]

The entire purpose of recommending the FREE CCleaner and directions to reboot both before and after was so you would not have to spend the time digging through the registry and hopefully finding all of the obscure registry entries that ccleaner finds automatically. I actually tested ccleaner's ability to find ALL of the entries before publishing that bit. I have not tested any other registry cleaners ability to completely remove all of the Oblivion and Shivering Isles entries. :whistling:

 

Also, if you install the Oblivion only patch before installing SI, the SI patch with the same version number will not install properly. :wallbash:(thanks Bethesda)

 

So proper reinstall

1. rename or move any files you think you might want to keep - save games, mods etc.

3. use game uninstaller to uninstall (Or just delete everything related to the game)

3. reboot - important!

4. run ccleaner

5. reboot

6. Install Oblivion, start game and make a save

7. install Shivering isles, start game and make a save

8. Install Official Shivering Isles patch from the Bethesda site.

9. Start game and make a save.

10. Play game for a while before installing any mods to make sure it is stable.

 

Now install OBSE, start the game with OBSE and play for a while to make sure it is stable.

 

Now before you start adding mods, back up your data folder so you don't have to go through that again. COPY the contents of the data into a new folder with a new name.

 

When it works, you can start piling on the mods. :thumbsup:

[MelloMan]

The entire purpose of recommending the FREE CCleaner and directions to reboot both before and after was so you would not have to spend the time digging through the registry and hopefully finding all of the obscure registry entries that ccleaner finds automatically. I actually tested ccleaner's ability to find ALL of the entries before publishing that bit. I have not tested any other registry cleaners ability to completely remove all of the Oblivion and Shivering Isles entries. :whistling:

 

Also, if you install the Oblivion only patch before installing SI, the SI patch with the same version number will not install properly. :wallbash:(thanks Bethesda)

 

So proper reinstall

1. rename or move any files you think you might want to keep - save games, mods etc.

3. use game uninstaller to uninstall (Or just delete everything related to the game)

3. reboot - important!

4. run ccleaner

5. reboot

6. Install Oblivion, start game and make a save

7. install Shivering isles, start game and make a save

8. Install Official Shivering Isles patch from the Bethesda site.

9. Start game and make a save.

10. Play game for a while before installing any mods to make sure it is stable.

 

Now install OBSE, start the game with OBSE and play for a while to make sure it is stable.

 

Now before you start adding mods, back up your data folder so you don't have to go through that again. COPY the contents of the data into a new folder with a new name.

 

When it works, you can start piling on the mods. :thumbsup:

[MelloMan]

Ok,

So I uninstalled Oblivion (again), deleted the remaining folders as directed. Downloaded and ran “ccleaner”. Rebooted as directed. Ran Windows 'Disk Cleanup' and then defrag. Installed just the basic game in a separate directory as directed. I did not load SI or any mods. Same problem. I can’t get past the launcher screen.

 

I still have the problem.

[bben46]

No more ideas, all I can say is the procedure has worked for me and many others. did you reboot before running ccleaner?

 

When you reboot after deleting the oblivion folders and before running ccleaner, windows marks the oblivion registry entries as orphans (not belonging to any installed program) And this is what allows ccleaner to remove them.