So I've had Steam and Oblivion for close to two years now. When I first got it I installed everything by just clicking OK and letting Steam install itself and Oblivion into the default area for Windows 7.

Is there a way to move both Steam and Oblivion along with all the mods I have installed with out messing things up and having to restart a new game? I have tons of hours and mods installed and I would really like to try and avoid having to go through the hassle of installing FCOM again.

Would be easier to http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-files/how-do-i-change-folder-and-file-permissions/465f2b42-63dd-4486-8dd1-c870290efeed on the steam folder, and all subfolders.

Why are you moving them, and where are you moving them to? I have found that there are 3 folders I need to preserve my Oblivion installation when moving between computers:

1: The Bethesda Softworks folder, which contains Oblivion, Oblivion/Data, Oblivion Mods (from Wrye Bash), etc.
2: The C:\User\My Games\Oblivion, which has the settings and saved games
- caveat: When moving between different computers, you shouldn't move Oblivion.ini and Renderinfo.ini; you should let your PC regenerate that from scratch when running Oblivion for the first time after you moved it. This means you will lose your ini tweaks. If you're moving it to the same computer this probably shouldn't be an issue.
3: The C:\Users\Appdata\Common\Oblivion folder

Caveat 2: The above will not move your Steam folder, and Steam will no longer recognize Oblivion as being installed. If you want to move your Steam folder, I believe you can move all of your game data to a temporary folder, uninstall Steam, reinstall it in the desired directory, and then move all of your game data back to your new Steam directory. This should preserve your installations; it did for me.

There is also software such as MOM (Multiple Oblivion install Manager) which should do this for you automatically.

If you want to move Oblivion to another hard drive (like I did after reinstalling Windows on an SSD), Link Junction Magic can move an entire folder to a different hard drive and make Windows think it's still in its original location.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

I want to do this in order to avoid issues with the UAC. So far I don't think I've had issues since my profile is the only profile on this computer and I'm the admin.

Doesn't matter. Even loggin in on an adminstrative account, doesn't make you admin. Still need to wrestle with windows over that one.

Yeah, I've never had any issues like that with my Steam games. And I have over 400

I'm not sure about this one. There is no "Appdata" folder on my computer and my Oblivion runs fine.

If you're on Windows 7 or Vista then there is. It's set to hidden by default; you need to enable viewing hidden directories to see it. On my PC, it's in C:\Users\Danja\AppData. If you simply copy that directory path into the Windows Explorer bar (obviously replacing my user name with yours), I think you can access it without enabling the "view hidden directories" setting. The directory stores, among other things, Plugins.txt, which I believe is your actual load order. This explains why before I found the AppData folder, moving my install to another computer resulted in a crashed game.

That would explain it. I don't use Windows 7 or Vista.

I don't think you have a Users folder either if not on Windows 7 or Vista.

Under XP, the equivalent folder would be C:\Documents and Settings\[UserName]\Local Settings\Application Data\Oblivion. It looks like it stores a list of installed DLC and the currently active ESPs/ESMs. Not sure if it's really needed or not.

plugins.txt is the file Oblivion actually uses to determine what plugins to load. So yeah, it's fairly important — but I think most mod managers these days keep separate track and edit the file automatically.

You can move the steam folder anywhere you like and create a reparse point / symbolic link.
You will need a program called junction: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768

Move the steam folder to for example d:\steam

from the cmd line write: cmd> junction.exe "c:\program files\steam" "d:\steam"

It's now physically on a seperate disk while a shadow remains in program files, all your links and registry setting are unaffected.

Hope this helps

if I'm just moving things out of the program files folder but leaving it on the same hard drive do I need to worry about the appdata folder?

Also I only have one hard drive on the computer so where should I move the steam folder to so I don't have UAC issues? would moving Steam to the games section of Windows 7 start menu work? Sorry to sound like an idiot but I REALLY don't know much when it comes to computers.

alt3rn1ty provided you with a link with detailed instructions on just how to do this. I'm guessing you must have missed it, https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129 it is anyway. I followed these exact instructions with no trouble at all when I realised I had to move mine at the start of this year.

Artorius.

yes I did read that. But like I said since I have one hard drive should it say C:\games or D:\games. It seems to me the way it's written like somebody with more then one hard drive.

Just Install it to C:/Games and you will be fine, all it needs to be is outside of C:/ProgramFiles or C:/ProgramFiles(x86), this will put it outside of the juristiction of the UAC.

Artorius.

would this work

C:\Users\Tatts4Life\Documents\My Games

I would avoid using that, because that is where your Oblivion save games and ini end up, too much chance of accidents happening there. I'm also certain that is also under the realm of UAC (which of course will cause problems with Bash). Just install in C:/Games as instructed (even if that means creating a new folder there- surely that's not beyond your abilities?)

Artorius.

ok got it, like I said when it comes to doing some stuff with computers I'm slow.

OK I've got everything moved into C:\games but I can't delete the files out of program files. Anybody know how I can do that? I've tried right click and delete and uninstalling and it doesn't work.

EDIT: never mind everything was deleted.

MAN talk about a pain in the ass. Ever since I moved the Steam folder all of my desktop short cuts either don't work or the game icon has been replaced with some generic windows icon. I've looked on Steams forums and it looks like I'm not the first or last to have this happen too. And nobody has an idea of how to fix it.

Gday
To move a steam game or the whole steam apps folder to another location. You just have to create a symlink
Using a mklink command. Or you can use Junction to move the game.
There is also a user made steam application that can do it as well. I think it is called Steam Mover.

Cheers