Alright, so I've just recently started modding, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Enough fun that I would like to start sharing my work with some friends. There's just one problem. My mods seem to disappear when I save them from the CS. They're still able to be enabled/disabled through the data files menu when you open the launcher, but if I look for the file to send to someone, it's nowhere to be found.
The CS file path leads to C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data, and yet the only .esp's in that folder are the ones patched in by OBMM. A search of my harddrive yields the result of some shortcuts that don't lead anywhere in my Recent history.
It should also be noted that trying to save a file anywhere other than my data folder results in an "Invalid Directory" error.

This probably a really stupid thing to be asking, but my tutorials haven't mentioned this so far, and google doesn't help much. Anyone?

Never install Oblivion in your Program Files directory, Windows has a lot of protection issues with stuff installed there, which can cause some really odd behavior like the stuff you described. Install it somewhere else and see if the problem goes away.

This. http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Windows_Vista explains in more detail.

Great link, thanks =)