can you run 2 installations of the same game from 1 OS?

MooSey-UK

MooSey-UK

MooSey-UK

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a question i've asked at another forum but not received satisfactory answers!

specifically i want two installations of Oblivion.....why?
because i want to run 2 very different characters with different mods applied. i don't want to have to keep activating/de-activating mods and shuffling thru save games.
ideally two installs would give me exactly what i want for each game without the risk of mod conflictions etc.

now how do to?
if i just tried to install from the disc im sure it would attempt to un-install my original installation first.
i could delete the registry entries and try but from experience i've found the disc still wants to un-install before letting you put a new game on.
so...
i thought about just copy and pasting the bethesda and oblivion root folders to a different partition and creating a shortcut from the copied oblivion.exe.

that would appear the best bet but would the essential extras such as construction set and oblivion mod manager work?
they themselves are installed within the oblivion directory so i would again just need to create shortcuts from the .exe's.
luckily i've got a back up of a fairly clean oblivion.

another method would be to delete the existing oblivion entries from registry.
re-name the root folder and "my games>oblivion" folder then try a fresh install.
hopeful the disc installer would not see or could'nt uninstall the renamed files and let me install a virgin fresh copy of oblivion onto a partition of my choice included adding the registry entries again.
i could then rename the original oblivion folders back to their correct names and just sort out the shortcuts.


has anyone tried any of the above?
i really want two working installations of oblivion each indiviually modded without resorting to a dual boot setup!

many thx in advance for the wise words of wisdom and answers to all my questions :D

MooSey
 
It varies from game to game, but Oblivion is one that I doubt will let you since it stores all of your settings in the My Documents folder. That being said, it might work if you create another user account for the second character and use that. Only one way to find out :).
 
well it would only look for and find what it was expecting.... ie the save games and .ini which either game install would access.
undoubtably i would probably have to create 2 character folders in "save games" and keep each character within each taking out whichever character save i wanted before play.

i guess i'll have to back up and try it out at some point and just see what happens.

p.s.

going back to the point made last post about user accounts.
if i make another windows user admin account, log onto it and try and install to that account what would happen?
im sure you get the option to make files available/unavailable to other users. so if i made the install unavailable to my normal account would i be able to carry out a straight install?
 
not sure about oblivion but i have two installations of combat mission.one is the out the box version and the other is heavily modded.just give the 2nd installation a different name at the appropriate time during instalation.
 
when you say name do you mean drive letter assignment?

i think the oblivion installer checks your pc registry first and asks if you want to uninstall before installing.

im going to have to play and experiment unless someone has satisfactorily done this with oblivion before.

i corrupted some plugins the other nite with the construction set and i don't think wifey will be happy if i spend a day installing oblivion + mods.....Again :D
 
Can you not just copy your current settings folder then delete it and then create a new profile and then alternate between the two settings folder when you want to swap characters, or do you actually want to play them at the same time? :S
 
I would imagine that if you create 2 user accounts and then install the game to 2 different directories, each time you install the game it asks whether the install is for everyone or just that user... that should allow you to run 2 different setups.
 
Done it tonight.
Just pasted the Bethesda/Oblivion folder onto another drive and created shortcuts.
Works a treat ;)
Oblivion Mod Manager is a bit odd though. Despite there being two copies, each with own target. If you enable/disable mods in one copy it affects the other. Im guessing something to do with registry?
Anyway now I can create a minx of a Mystic elf Assassain.
 
or install the o/s twice on the same hdd on different partitions and then install one copy of the game on each partition
 
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