Steam version of Oblivion will not run on win 8.1?

[venusian]

Hi all, I've just downloaded/purchased the steam version of Oblivion (Deluxe version), after playing the disc version for some time now...and guess what, after clicking on the launcher, I get stuck at this small window that tells me that the game is preparing to launch...I've only just installed the latest version of OBSE, could this have something to do with it, any other win 8.1/Steam Oblivion players out there with the same issue?

Edited January 6, 2014 by venusian

[Striker879]

Did you install OBSE using the Steam install and game start instructions (i.e. enabled Steam Community)?

[venusian]

Hi Striker yes I did enable the ingame steam community setting...I'm not sure what you mean abt the OBSE bit though...shoudn't the digital download work off the bat even without OBSE though?

[Striker879]

Yes it should work right off the bat without OBSE. When troubleshooting it's always best to start from a known position, which for you would be just the base game installed and running without issues. I don't know what changes Microsoft made between Win 8 and Win 8.1 (I'm an old Win XP dinosaur, but I have a bit of Vista and Win 7 experience on the grandkid's machines) but they certainly still have UAC enforced on C:\Program Files and/or C:\Program Files (x86). Is your Steam installed in either of those?

[venusian]

I agree totally...I even turned off all the 'extra' DLS and just ticked the Oblivion master ESM, still no dice...I installed the steam client at various locations, from the program files (x86), to the program files (which I learnt from google was the 64 bit version of (x86)) and even straight to the desktop...am currently downloading Oblivion to the C:\Users\name\Documents\My Games folder and see how it 'behaves' there..

Edited January 7, 2014 by venusian

[Striker879]

Depending on how you've handled your uninstalls and re-installs you could have a bit of a registry mess right now. The recommended place to install Steam and then Oblivion is C:\Games. Here's a link to bben46's wiki article Oblivion reinstall procedure. Don't miss the link near the top of the page about moving your Steam install ... and don't skip the registry cleaning step.

[Fistandilius]

I agree with Striker879. Did you try running the game at all as stock before putting all the mod stuff on? I'm not sure from your post if you installed it after the 8.1 upgrade or before. It sounds like after to me.

 

I'm not saying 8.1 isn't the problem, but there's no way to tell if it's an 8.1 conflict with Oblivion or with OBSE or with some other mod type thing you're using without having tried them one at a time first. And now that you already installed it once you could have registry stuff like Striker said, or just some temporary files lying around.

 

You could try running CCleaner. It's a free system cleaner. I use it for registry only, but if you don't mind getting your cookies and stuff cleaned up you could run it on that sort of stuff and save hard drive space and probably get your computer running faster, but I like not having to log into every site I go to because of the cookies.

 

Here's the site: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

 

Make sure you make a backup of your registry (ccleaner will do this for you).

 

I recently had a video problem (still unresolved) with my laptop that I thought was Win 8.1's fault, but I did a full format and system recovery to win 8 and found that I had the same issue with 8.

 

I've also never seen (never looked either) a full description off what all differences there are between 8 and 8.1 other than the silly start icon, and changing how "all programs" are accessed, so who knows what all they did in the background.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Fistandilius

[DrakeTheDragon]

I agree totally...I even turned off all the 'extra' DLS and just ticked the Oblivion master ESM, still no dice...I installed the steam client at various locations, from the program files (x86), to the program files (which I learnt from google was the 64 bit version of (x86)) and even straight to the desktop...am currently downloading Oblivion to the C:\Users\name\Documents\My Games folder and see how it 'behaves' there..

If there is a UAC in your OS, then 'all' locations you listed so far will be protected by it, as these're all system folders.

They don't say 'C:/Games/', a totally made-up location, without a reason. I for one am not using 'C:/Games/' myself, but I'm not installing it into any of the other folders created by Windows either, as any protection issues arising inside "program files" can be expected to arise inside the others as well.

[venusian]

Thanks to all who replied...I have followed all recommendations, installed it to C:/Games, followed bben64's wiki article, went into my registry, tried to launch the game using both OBSE and non OBSE methods, made sure the 'in game setting' was enabled...the game won't even run to the opening titles..what a waste of money...I wonder what it would take for win 8.1 and Steam Oblivion to play nice...thank heck I haven't thrown away my physical copy of Oblivion..if only I could port over the extra DLCS from the steam download over to my 'main' Oblivion installation..

[Striker879]

Are you saying that after following bben46's article and installing the game and absolutely nothing else you still can't get the game to run? First step is always confirm the completely vanilla game will run. If that won't run you'll need to contact Steam to find out how to run their product on Win 8.1.

 

If that's the case then before you contact Steam there is one last thing you can try. Look down near the bottom of the first page of this thread and try the obse_loader.exe that shadowslasher410 linked. It's not likely to help (he's using the Anthology version), but desperate times ...

Edited January 8, 2014 by Striker879