Hi everybody,

after a long time of playing TES IV on Win XP 32-bit, I am planning to upgrade to Win 7 (64 bit).
But I have found so many scattered hints across the forums about various things you should know about Win 7 and Oblivion that I am a bit confused.

So my question is: Does anybody know a good overview/summary of things to consider before upgrading?

I am not talking about general questions of upgrading from XP to Win7. I am also aware of the general system requirements for Win 7 (my PC has a Quad Core CPU with 64 bit capability, 6 GB of RAM (theoretically), a quite new motherboard and a decent GPU (NV GTX285)). So I guess upgrading my OS won't be a problem.

I am rather interested in the specific game related aspects. This includes, e.g.:
- playing the game itself
- usage of essential gaming and modding tools like TES CS, OBMM, Wrye Bash, BOSS etc.

Here's what I already (believe to) have learned, though I don't know any details:

- Win 7 for TES IV is not officially supported by gamesas, though most people don't consider this a problem (game runs better on Win 7 actually)
- There are some security restrictions in Win 7, such as for the c:\Programs folder. This is why people usually install the game and/or modding tools in another place (but which tools are affected? Where to install?)
- TES IV doesn't support RAM memory space higher than 2 GB by default. Full benefit of 4+ GB RAM on a 64-bit system can only be harvested by applying special tweaks/flags to the game files (which tweaks, where/how to apply)?
- Contrary to XP, Win 7 supports DirectX 10. But does Oblivion benefit from that?
- Anything else...?

I'd be very very happy about helpful information.
I suppose that other people would also profit from having such information bundled in one place.
I will also try to contribute here whatever I learn.

Thanks!
jaime74

P.S.: I have already posted the same topic in the tesnexus forums http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/296690-tes-iv-and-windows-7-64-bit/. As I don't intend to double-post, I'll try to keep up only one of both threads once there are enough replies (depending on which thread gets more feedback).

-Oblivion itself shouldn't give you too much trouble over Windows 7, but the other way around... bit of a different story.

-Just make sure to install the game outside of the Program Files directory so you won't have to deal with UAC. It could be a directory like C:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion. Just create your own directory when installing the game. Do that, and your modding experience will be unhindered.

-http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

-Oblivion does not support DirectX 10 and will not run on it, period. You will still need DirectX 9.0c.

It in fact also supports DirectX 11... if your graphics card does. But even so, well, what Thomas said.

I'm running Win7 x64, and it's actually been a better platform for gaming, I've found. But yes, do install somewhere like C:\Games\Oblivion (or whatever looks good to you).

yes what they said plus im running oblivion on win 7 ultimate 32bit with low - mid range specs and it runs fine, using mods also. So should work fine on 32 or 64 bit,

and i also installed into custom path, C:\Games\Bethesda,etc to avoid UAC problems

Hi erverybody, and thanks for the replies!
Sounds good, and special thanks for the LAA link, Thomas Kaira!

I guess it will make sense to continue this discussion in the parallel thread on tesnexus: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/296690-tes-iv-and-windows-7-64-bit/page__gopid__2701938#entry2701938.
I'll try to summarize there from time to time what we've gathered together here.