[Guide] How to create and manage multiple installs of Oblivion from one install

[Psymon]

[Guide] How to create and manage multiple installs of Oblivion from one install

 

Have you ever wanted to have multiple installs of the core modded Bethesda game Oblivion? This is achievable without needing to fuss of muss with swapping out directory pathing or files? Examples of this need for me have included wanting to test an expansive mod without messing with my main load order, wanting to see how a mod behaves in different install environments, I can imagine it would be handy to have a place to work on mods separate from playing with them. have you wanted to try Morroblivion, but your load order is full? If this interests you then read on.

The goal here is to create multiple concurrent side by side installs of the same game, where the installs, files, mods, nor utilities interfere with other installs (their files, mods, or utilities). This is a two part process. The first is about making alterations to an install to have it be more local to the game directory (though not truly portable). The second part is about custom settings in utilities and creating special shortcuts to point utilities to the correct files that are now local to the game directories instead of their normal default locations.

Caveat 1 - This guide, while written for Oblivion, as far as I can tell. It will not work with later games. So Oblivion centric. This guide is for Wrye Bash users. I may at some point add a section for using profiles with MO2 to get this same effect, but that is not here in this post.

Caveat 2 - This is written for Windows 10 users, and is not to be considered for Linux. Though if anyone can write that out, I would surely post it here, or you can in a reply.

Caveat 3 - This may cause issues with how windows manages a game install, this may only be evidenced when trying to uninstall the game. In this case what I recommend doing is to not uninstall the second copied game but instead to delete that then uninstall the game that you made a copy of. As uninstalling it or the original install will mess with both. So if undoing this. Delete the copy and uninstall the original. If needed or wanted.

Note - The guide does not apply to and cannot be used for Fallout games or Skyrim and probably not Morrowind.

 

-- Part 0 - Install the game, or use an existing install ----------------------------------------

a. Choosing the best version of the game to install. My vote on this is the GOG version  of Oblivion, as it is already patched 4gb large address aware. I do not recommend installing the game via GOG galaxy though and on the page's download section scroll down and open all options to find the offline installer files for the game.

b. Install the game in a non default location, with disc or offline GOG this can be chosen. With Steam it will always be embedded within steam directories even if you choose a custom location. The main issue is to install outside of the normally higher UAC control areas of the C drive on windows. So mainly don't install in the normal program files folder that windows defaults putting most games into. You could still use the C drive, but I don't recommend it if using an additional drive is available. This can provide a small performance boost as well to have the game on a separate drive than the operating system. In fact I have a game drive and a mod archive drive that are each separate from the operating system drive.

c. Run the game once to make sure it works and generates an Oblivion.ini and plugins.txt file
OR
c. Back up all the particulars below before moving them if using an existing install.

Tip - Having done this a few times I have come to the conclusion that it is best to alter the initial install to not be just 'oblivion'. So that means something like Oblivion 1, or whatever. I think there are inner settings and expectations of tools to default looking in the generic location name and this can have issues even with things like Microsoft Defender.

Tip - I don't recommend using a modded out existing install ... unless it is just essential tools like wrye bash, OBSE, edit, teslodgen, and the like. If doing this and the Part 1 steps are not in affect then you will need to alter them before or after the duplicating the install, Part 2.

 

-- Part 1a - Localizing game install files -----------------------------------------------------------

1. Move the Oblivion.ini file from it's default location to the game root directory. The default location on windows is often located:

C:\Users\[User Name]\Documents\My games\Oblivion

The game root directory depends on where you installed it. With steam and default GOG galaxy versions this is usually embedded within those directories. The main thing to understand is that this means the Oblivion folder, and NOT the data folder. The root folder is where one finds the oblivion.exe.

2. Move the Plugins.txt from the default location to the game root directory. The default location on windows is often located:
C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\Oblivion (you may have to make system folder visible to see this).

Do not worry about the DLCList.txt it does not matter for this and would be the same for each install anyway.

Do not leave either plugins.txt or Oblivion.ini in either of the default locations. (One could back them up as well at those locations by either renaming them or creating a backup folder and leaving them there.) The main thing is to not have them ready to be read by the current or any other installation of a game you want multiple installations of.

3. Make the following edits to the Oblivion.ini that now resides in the root game directory folder. As reference for this check out UESP page on Oblivion.ini: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Ini_Settings scroll to the bottom for the section titled 'Use Oblivion.ini and Plugins.txt in Oblivion Directory'

Find these bolded entries (easiest just to search for them) and then alter them to fit your current install paths. for the purposes of this example I will go about this as if the primary Oblivion install is located at: G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\

3a. Change 'bUseMyGamesDirectory=' to 0.
    0 = Use the Oblivion directory (directory is wherever Oblivion.exe is)
    1 = Use the My Documents\My Games\Oblivion directory (default)
 This will make the game look in the root directory for the oblivion.ini and plugins.txt

3b. Change 'SScreenShotBaseName=' to the local path. In this example:
    G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Screenshots\Screenshot
This will save screenshots to the local root folder and therefore be install specific, so this will need to be adjusted per install.

3c. Change 'SLocalSavePath=' to SLocalSavePath=Saves\
This will make the game put save game files in the root directory and therefore install specific. Of note not including the final '\' will result in being unable to make a save game, you can try but none will save.

4. Move the saves folder from MyGames\Oblivion to the root folder, next to the data folder.

5. Make sure that there is no Oblivion.ini in the MyGames\Oblivion folder. If there are legacy files or even wrye bash files there move them also or delete them as you see fit.

-- Part 1b - Testing the localized game files -------------------------------------------------------

Next test the game as it is localized to see if it will:

1. run - meaning that no errors are thrown and that you can make a character, exit, reload, etc.

2.  Does not try and make saves in the MyGames\Oblivion folder. These will forever now be located in the root folder and any existing saves in the MyGames\Oblivion could be a problem and confuse the issue.

3. Does not regenerate the plugins.txt in AppData\Local\Oblivion. This too will forever now reside in the root folder.

4. Most importantly that the Oblivion.ini is not regenerated in the MyGames\Oblivion folder.

Warning - Opening the OblivionLauncher without an Oblivion.ini in the MyGames\Oblivion folder will result in a new one being generated. You can move the custom one you edited to that location temporarily if you need to open the launcher. Or if you need to actually regenerate the ini then do that and you would need to edit the settings described above.

 

 

-- Part 2a - Duplicate the install --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Basically you just open windows explorer, find the Oblivion install root folder, Copy it and paste it where you like. You can rename it if you like, but I recommend keeping it simple, I just called mine Oblivion 2 and it resides right next to the regular oblivion root folder. So they are both present and side by side. At this point they can both be started and played and will not interfere with each other.

Making sure to repeat Parts 2 above for each new install such that the paths point to wherever you placed the copied game directory.

WARNING - Do not do this by trying to get Steam and GOG or another version onto the same drive or OS, they will want to share the same extraneous folders and although you may set all the pathing correctly as described here. It will not work, or it didn't work for me. I've tried this twice and both times were horrendous failures.

-- Part 2b - Test the duplicated the install -------------------------------------------------------------

Again do as before and test to make sure that the duplicate install works, can you load it, make a new character, make a save. Then exit and see if the saves are in their own discrete and separate save location and in no way interfere with the first install. While doing this I recommend opening up windows explorer to both AppData\Local\Oblivion and MyGames\Oblivion and refreshing the view on these after each test. And again if you run the oblivion_launcher.exe it will generate a new ini EVERY SINGLE TIME. So either place your altered ini there or edit the new one.

I recommend making initial character saves that say Oblivion 1 or 2 or whatever name you chose for the individual installs so that if there is ever a mix up you can tell which saves you are accessing at a glance.

This was and is the most tedius part and I really recommend trying to do this with two fresh installs not a currently modded install. It may also be worthwhile to turn off folder protection in windows (ransomware protection) ... you can disconnect from the internet while doing so, but I do think this can play a part in confusing things as it can throw errors on both oblivion.exe and wrye bash.exe which can be problematic. Make sure it all works then turn it back on.

This is most of it. The rest is about adjusting utilities to use these custom paths.

 

 

-- Part 3a - Adjust utility settings and shortcuts ---------------------------------------------------

Wrye Bash - This is the quintessential tool for Oblivion and mod use. It is assumed that one wants to use this as both a plugin manager and a mod installer and manager.

Due to the nature of this guide I highly recommend using the stand alone version of wrye bash, and not the installer. the installer version will have one central Wrye Bash and then detect potential games that it can work with. I'm not 100% certain at the time of this writing but I think the installer version of bash would not be able to detect a game not registered in the registry. In this case then the best thing to do for any duplicated multiple games is to use the stand alone version with those games. The installer does have two extra locations you can manually set, but only two. That may be sufficient. but I still recommend using the stand alone version in the duplicated installs.

To begin with it is possible to customize a wrye bash installation. This is done by going into the Oblivion\mopy\ folder and finding the bash_default.ini and copying it and pasting it in the same directory then naming it to bash.ini open this file then and adjust the following entries to suit your install scheme.This may take some thinking and planning. Below is an example of how to set up bash to use the same mod archive on a different drive and set the entries for each install separately so they do not interfere with each other. for this example assume the game is located at:

G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\

The mods archive (Bash installers) directory is located at:

H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion

The three entries are at the top of the bash.ini the defaults are to have Wrye Bash generate these folders on initialization normally on the same drive next to the oblivion folder. Altering them even after initialization will just mean that it will then look for these folders in the new locations. Do these settings in bash.ini for each install.

a. 'sOblivionMods=' to H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods
This will have wrye bash look in this folder for the mods to install or are already installed.

b. 'sBashModData=' to H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods\Oblivion 1 Bash Mod Data
or H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods\Oblivion 2 Bash Mod Data
From the bash.ini itself: 'his will set the records of containing data about your mods, ini edits, etc. If managing multiple installs, you will want to change this to keep the Bash data with your saved game files'. This is an option, but mostly what you want is to have these files separate from other installs storing the same information. If you make sure either the location or folder name is different so that these will not interefere when loading other installs.

c. 'sInstallersData=' to H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods\Oblivion 1 Bash
or H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods\Oblivion 2 Bash
This is the directory containing data about which installers are installed by Wrye Bash, so which mods are installed an which sub-packages etc. Like before the goal is to have discrete separate entries for each install. And again you could choose to save this info even more locally in the game root folder if you choose.

It is also worth noting that when Wrye Bash initializes if you are using MyGames directory for ini and saves - it seems to store settings there. If installing before initializing then if bUseMyGamesDirectory=0 then those should be placed in the root folder. If working with a wrye bash already initialized then move those to the root folder. It is very very likely these will cause interference with another install of Wrye Bash.

-- Part 3b - Alternatively and less space consuming -------------------------------------------

Another way to set this up is to have both installs share the same BAIN installers mod archive, but track different sets of what is installed from that archive.

The following are suggested paths for the bash.ini for this. These would be for the first Oblivion install:
sOblivionMods=H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods
sBashModData=H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods\Oblivion 1 Mod Data\Bash Mod Data
sInstallersData=H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods\Oblivion 1 Mod Data\Bash

These would be for the second install:
sOblivionMods=H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods
sBashModData=H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods\Oblivion 2 Mod Data\Bash Mod Data
sInstallersData=H:\Installed Mods\Oblivion Mods\Oblivion 2 Mod Data\Bash

Then of course set up those paths on your hard drive. This allows for no needing to duplicate what is in the main archive folder and each will then use the same packages, but read them differently based on each install. This second way is what I am currently using and what I recommend doing ... but ....

Warning - I suggest being very very careful if doing this with an install that is already active. One mistake could result in scrubbing all data about what is/isn't installed and recovering that may be possible by annealing back in all the mods, but not easy and the larger it is - the more chance that many mistakes will occur. I highly recommend first setting up this from the start and don't try to convert these from existing installs. If you are going to add an install next to an existing install to not mess with the pathing on the existing one and instead add custom paths for the second install. I made the mistake of doing this and ended up having to start over - twice.

-- Part 3c - Other Utilities ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TES4Edit, xEdit, Teslodgen, etc.

These tools seek out the oblivion.ini and the plugins.txt in the default locations. The answer is to create shortcuts then add cmd line parameters to the target field of the shortcut. So following the above examples for game directory paths being used. Here is what would work to put in the target field of the shortcut:

"G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion 2\TES4Edit 4.0.4\TES4Edit.exe" -D: "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data" -P: "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Plugins.txt" -I: "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Oblivion.ini"

Or broken down line by line for easier reading:
"G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion 2\TES4Edit 4.0.4\TES4Edit.exe"
    -D: "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data"
    -P: "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Plugins.txt"
    -I: "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Oblivion.ini"

Do this for each utility and save the shortcuts where ever you access them, the best thing to do with Wrye Bash is copy those shortcuts and put them in the Mopy\apps\ folder ... i.e. G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion 2\Mopy\apps\ this will place the premade shortcuts to the bottom bar of wrye bash so they can be launched from there with the cmd parameters intact.

Other Utilities.

I've not tested with all utilities and if the shortcuts can find their way to the new locations. A quick, but annoying, fix for this is to place the Oblivion.ini and plugins.txt back in the default locations to run whatever the other utility is .. for example tes4ll. I will update this with either success or failure in using these methods.

Loot offers the ability to set new games and paths in it's settings. Just that each time you launch it you may have to change which game is being managed.

I find the icons available here Wrye Bash Icon Pack to be valuable so you can know which wrye bash you are opening as this is how I also usually launch the game.

== Notes

I learned how to do this when the first SureAI total overhaul for Oblivion, Nehrim, was released. Back then the Nehrim launcher was given as something to overwrite the current oblivion install. It took tricks and maneuvers back then to not have the installs interfere with each other. This I documented in an old thread called Nehrim and mods on the official forums, and this was backed up in a similar form here:

Nehrim
https://sureai.net/games/nehrim/
https://www.gog.com/en/game/nehrim_at_fates_edge
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1014940/Nehrim_At_Fates_Edge/

Enderal (there is a version for LE and SE)
https://sureai.net/games/enderal/
https://www.gog.com/en/game/enderal_forgotten_stories
https://store.steampowered.com/app/933480/Enderal_Forgotten_Stories/

Both of SureAI's total overhauls for Oblivion and Skyrim have been released with all the settings moved to local game directories. This is all arranged automatically if you use the STEAM or GOG version of these games.These are excellent games to play. I recommend them. And the advantage of these installer versions is that they in no way interfere with any existing install of Oblivion or Skyrim. Learning how this was accomplished was essence of what this guide is about.

Also the way I write guides is so I don't have to think about the issue again. Of course willing to help anyone needing it based off of what is presented, but ultimately it is your install and your responsibility. Also this is in no way meant to be a guide on how to pirate a game. It is assumed that you already own the game and have it installed.

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== History of this 'project'

I've always liked cover songs, hence with games I adore total overhauls and remakes. So when Nehrim came out I was intrigued. Then I wanted to change what was offered hence began researching how to mod Nehrim. My initial thread called Nehrim and Mods is now long gone and the hyperlink takes you to a back up of it, copied and formatted by someone else. It is now probably out of date as back then Nehrim was not offered on Steam, much less GOG. So getting a second Nehrim install that doesn't affect your oblivion game - that alone was an initial challenge. You can read some of that thread to see the solutions offered.

What probably also is not discussed on that is other projects that arose trying to create a means whereby the entire set of required windows directories were swapped at once. So
- the game directory
- the appdata folder
- the documents folder
which is what is needed if INI edits don't change where saves are located. I'm not sure how Linux handles this and if it is possible for that OS,

A modder by the name of Hannaisse stepped forward and made MOM - Multiple Oblivion Manager. This tool works with some caveats and on windows, at least, it can be wonky. It does swap out those three sets of directory folders and one can have more than just one extra install (for whatever reason). My own experience being that after a while it would stop working, stop swapping, and I've been told the answer is to restart the computer before doing any forensic work as to why.

Restarting the system when trying to go back and forth between installs means closing all notes and windows and where you were, just to get the windows system to unhook directories. Not restarting and trying to fix paths for me resulted in worse messes. Another negative about the MOM approach is that it leaves one more prone to operator error if utilities that are expecting one install to be in place and another is instead. This operator error has stung me with regard to shortcuts I set up. Again you may be more concise and aware of this, but it becomes a lot to clean up and so I prefer this method.Today more savvy ini settings makes swapping of data folders not as needed especially when combined with the new streaming platform launchers available for these total overhaul mods.

This is a book end to the other thread Nehrim and Mods from the before times when the official forums where that was posted originally.

Thanks highly to SureAI and the team of Wrye Bash. They make all this possible. I just outline it best I can. Thanks to Infernio, Arthmoor, Beermotor, and Sibir for feedback that helped write this.

I will revive this based on further results or feedback that helps define steps better. Specifically with regard to other games, So far this works wonderfully with Oblivion.

Psymon

Tome of Psymon ... My old threads on Custom BAIN installations backed up. I did not choose that name, It is called that by the wrye bash team who preserved it as part of a tome series. Thanks guys.

 

Edited April 5 by Psymon

[Psymon]

Just reserving he second post for if I need to add info about Enderal and Skyrim

 

Also if anyone can confirm for me that the fallout 3 main game ini can be moved to the local game folder and out of the documents\my games\oblivion folder ...and how to do that, please let me know, Otherwise another thread rename is gonna happen.

 

Since I learned how to do this with Nehrim I'm sure skyrim will be the same because Enderal.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Psymon

[Psymon]

Another reserve now I guess ... This is the third draft of this guide. The last one had it where I was recommending dismantling the Nehrim/Enderal installs and converting them back to Oblivion. I've since learned that is not at all necessary and that this variation should work.

If other games and installs require different instructions I will likely edit these two reserved posts with whatever salient info is needed.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Psymon