Is it possible to have two separate installations of Oblivion on one computer? On separate account.

By separate installations I mean COMPLETELY separate, installed into different folders. If I log onto my brothers account on this computer (windows 7) and install the game to a different folder I know the saves will be separate but will that somehow damage the installation on the other account. I can't see why it would but I don't want to mess my game up.

Yes, it is possible to manage multiple installs of Oblivion.

Make sure that each copy has its own separate configuration folder, and you'll be in good shape.

I'm not sure if that is possible because the location is specified in the registry. I'm pretty sure you cannot do that but have not confirmed.

But more to the point you can create two different windows account to access the same directory. You can select different mods and use the accounts to keep character separate. I do that all the time. I have about 8 accounts on my gaming computer, each one for a different character and with slightly different mod selections. But one Oblivion installation. The only trick is that you need to make sure that each account has proper permissions for the Oblivion install folder.

I would prefer to use two account to access one installation, however my brother would want a lot of the mods disabled and last time I disabled lots of mods (it was on my account though) it broke the installation and I had to reinstall the game and begin adding the mods again from scratch, I don't want that to happen again

I might just install windows on another partition and dual boot, that would do the trick.

I asked this same question on the forums once, and hopefully you'll be as thrilled as I was to find out about http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35263 which makes life incredibly easy for managing Oblivion installed in multiple directories.

Wow! Thrilled indeed What a useful little app!

Let me see if I understand this correctly, after creating a clone and switching to it, that clone is now what will be excecuted if I run the desktop shortcut?

How are savegames affected? Are they also switched?

I basically just want to "switch over" so my brother can play with different mods.

That is exactly what it does. Save games are also switched. Once you have them installed and set up, it's as simple as loading mTES4 and clicking "Switch."

I'm having a little difficulty understanding how I should proceed. Maybe you can help. I have one single installation of oblivion with my saves. I have my brothers saves saved on my desktop.

This is what I intend to do:

1 - Create a clone.

2 - Switch to new clone (will my saves be saved/moved out of the way in this step automatically?)

3 - Move my brothers saves to documents\my games

4 - My brother plays his own installation.

Then after, when I switch back and forth between these clones, the saves will always switch and I don't need to backup/restore them manually?

I want to make sure I understand it right before I do it.

As of right now, you and your brother's saves are both in the same installation of Oblivion, right? So when you make a clone, it will make a clone of all of those saves as well. You could then just delete your saves from your brother's Oblivion and delete his from yours (maybe make a backup of them just incase, though I don't think it will be a problem.) I don't think you'll need to move any saves at all, unless I'm not understanding you. But yes, when you switch between installations, the saves will also switch automatically.