Is anyone here running 2 installations of oblivion?
I plan on running a vanilla one and a modded one.

Do I need to tweak my registry?

Not two installs exactly, but you can run different profiles using Wrye Bash. See http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Wrye_Bash/Basic#Create.2FSwitch_Savegame_Profiles. You can then activate the mods you want in one profile, and use the "load masters" to make sure those mods are active when you play that character. So you can have one character with all your mods (or a selection) and one character effectively playing vanilla.

What you are describing is exactly the purpose for which save profiles were made. You can use Bash, implement it yourself, or use one of the save game managers someone has made for the game. There are users running two installs, using BAT scripts to edit the registry or something, I think. In any case, the users running two installs (on the same OS) are running SI Oblivion and non-SI Oblivion, it seems. If you do not need to do that (i.e., for mod development), using save profiles should suffice.

Just copy the Oblivion directory and then the corresponding save directory.

Rename the one you want to use to the default names.

There's no messing with the registry involved.

Oh...that's simple, haha. Save profiles are still the simplest solution for this situation, no need for multiple Oblivion Data folders.

It really depends on which mods he's talking about. Some replacers can't really be undone easily.

Also, having a vanilla install in a separate directory means if you go full out with something like FCOM and then change your mind it's much faster to start over.

The only issue with two directories are the mods that use installers - when you go to uninstall a mod if you're not pointing in the right place beforehand they'll get confused.

Agreed. However, BAIN makes replacers about the easiest thing to uninstall. There are no plugins to require rebuilding the Bashed Patch once removed. ^____^


Happy gaming!
- Tomlong75210

The only hitch with this is that of replacers - so if mods replace textures, meshes - those will remain in there (unless you anneal them out between switching profiles - which would require lots of defraging).

Listening to old timers around here the way that I heard it done was to either have two computers -or- create two boot drives with differing operating systems (well they can be the same version). Then install the game to different locations for each os.

Never tried anything like that myself - the only value I would see to this would be for testing mods or other game engine tweaking - and frankly I feel I've served my time on that.

I always forget that I turn on auto-anneal as soon as I initialize BAIN. It is all automatic in my head. I really wish I could see better right now...stupid eye stuff...

Is there a way to make 2 "Bain" profiles (Something like the save profiles)?
I don't want some packages showing up on my lightly modded game.

Not practical with the same install - it would be the same with annealing in and out with each switch. That is a lot of data transferring and deleting. I recall Dev_Akm's advice that Oblivion runs much better with a defragmented drive, so this would create the need for more and more defraging.

But then that may not be that big a deal depending on the amount of mods/replacers or if using a sold state drive or something, which I would totally do if I could afford the luxury.

In this case, just make to Bash Installers folder. All you have to do to switch between BAIN profiles is change one line in the Bash.ini.

But that won't do anything about what is installed. And further wouldn't that also mean that after switching BAIN would then not know what was installed from the previous version to then anneal out when the newer version is there?

If I'm right then that is not an answer worth pursuing for any reason I can think of.

This makes my head hurt... In that case, then the OP would need to switch the Oblivion Mods folder and the Oblivion folder, so that the two are in sync. Personally, I would leave my visual enhancers (i.e., texture replacers) installed, and still think of the game as lightly modded if I only had ten plugin in my load order or something. That is way more work than I want to put into my setups (on top of all that I already do.) If I were modding, then that just seems like necessary effort sometimes.