Bzzt. Wrong. My personal experience says otherwise - which is with Oblivion, not Fallout 3. Furthermore, considering the way Steam normally works, I find it hard to believe your argument in the first place. Bzzt. Wrong again. Unless, of course, my computer is magically immune to such things? Bzzt. Bad advice. An easier solution would be to just cut'n'paste your Steam folder elsewhere. Surprisingly enough, Steam doesn't mind! Backing up your games would likely take up several DVDs of space, and some games would insist on being redownloaded!

I'm not interested in going back in forth with you but I would like to be sure the information is accurate. If I'm wrong I can admit that, and learn from it. Although I think your Bzzt comments are rather immature and conceded.

Okay, maybe I should have specifically stated that my Oblivion files are still dated 2006, even though I certainly didn't download the game from STEAM in 2006. I was using the disc version back then. Remember we're talking about the modified date not the created date. The created date will indeed show the date of installation, but that's not the date that matters here.

The dates varied also, not all were the same day or month even. They varied from late January to late February 2006. The game was released in March, a little over a month later. (The same applies to Fallout 3, BSAs are dated a little over a month prior to release.) This is not due to using OBMM's reset timestamp function since it sets all files to 1/1/2006. My most recent complete re-installation was only about 2 months ago, so by your theory my files should have a modified date Nov. 2010, however they do not. Yet the created date does indeed show Nov. 16 2010. (With Fallout 3 the modified date is Sept. 30, 2008, created date Dec. 27, 2010, date of installation.) So with both Fallout 3 and Oblivion my files have retained their original dates, not dates of installation, for the modified date, the one that matters.


For the other two points, I stick to what I said originally. However I did learn something if you can indeed just cut/paste your STEAM folder to a new location. I've always just re-installed it, since that's the safer approach with almost all applications when you want to move them around. Either way I'm not sure how you can say it's bad advice to suggest someone back up and re-install. Different approach, yes. Bad or harmful, no.

Actually, I checked my BSA dates and they read 1/4/2010, the date of my last download, whereas the mod's ESP reads 12/12/2006.

Ignore roxharis, ignore the bsa dates thing. Just reinstall outside of Program Files, and your problem will disappear.

Why would that have any effect when it works the exact same way as the disc version but in the Steam directory? Especially considering I haven't had any problems with the disc version which has been installed in Program Files since I got it?

Fixed it by using my ESM from the disc version rather than the one downloaded by steam.

Just for future reference, it does work, as more then half a dozen people have told you in this thread. The way we all know that it does work is because it has been tried and tested and proven over and over again.

Uhhh... hate to break it to you, but Steam wouldn't update the BSA files, unless Bethesda did so. No amount of EXE patching will change the BSA modified dates.
UAC still exists in Windows 7 as it did in Windows Vista. See http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/07/windows-7-whats-up-with-the-uac if you don't believe me.
I think that's exactly what Smooth meant. Backup doesn't necessarily entail pulling out a DVD and burning a file to it, you know.

Well, just to add some food for thought the problem was not with the location, rather with the actual files. I used my disc version's files for the base version of oblivion rather than steam's base files and it worked just fine. And yes, steam is still installed in program files.

So take that nay-sayers of program files!

Well, if UAC is still turned on, you're bound to run into funny little problems in the future - batch files not working correctly (BOSS may misbehave), Wrye Bash acting up, xml files not loading, etc. Keep a look out for odd little problems as time goes on.

You're only hurting yourself by trying to prove us wrong, but hey, some folks have to learn the hard way I guess.

I agree, we were just trying to help. Perhaps we shouldn't have made that effort. :shrug:

*sigh*

As many others have said, don't come back here blaming us if your mods get borked because of UAC locking out certain files. The evidence of UAC causing trouble for modders that you have chosen to ignore is very well known.

I don't even see it taking more than 10 minutes to transfer Steam and all your related games out of the Program Files folder, either. There is really no reason for you to procrastinate on this. Don't get us wrong, this is a very necessary step for having a stable modding experience.