...I've got spare files all over the desktop and I'm trying to compare ini files...

Ah, welcome back Phon. I must say I've become quite addicted to modded Oblivion over these past few months.

Thankfully my latest install is still going strong and I hope it´ll stay that way. I experience a few bugs from time to time but nothing that warrants a reinstall.

Btw nice seeing you again, Phon!

Come and think of it, I've done at least 4 installs myself. On my old comp I did at least 3. Had to tear my entire game down twice because I didn't know what I was doing, and couldn't get things to work right. It's frustrating, but also fun in a way. The fourth install (on my new comp) I enjoyed completely. Got some Coke and some snacks. Took hours, too. At least six hours from installing the game to installing whatever mod I was up to at that time.

Reinstalls are in fact a reason for me not to have too many mods..

I know I can copy my Data folder but I also need an empty USB memory stick for it

To be honest it's a nightmare.
I don't want to start again and my backup just fails - there's too much that's going wrong.

So I think I'm gonna sit on it for a while and see how I feel about it later. It takes me a lot of investment in my characters and I never really gave this one a chance. to be honest I am loathe to start again from scratch but I can't get the install to work from the backup so there we go...

I have had to reinstall the game 4 or 5 times over the years. Once like Renee because of mod problems, and the other times just because I was upgrading to new hard drives or brand new computers. But I still have the very first character I ever created.

You can make a copy all of your save files. They are in a Saves folder in the same place as your .ini files. The exact location varies on what version of Windows you have. In Win 7 it is c:\Users\<user name>\My Games\Oblivion. You can find your mod load order in c:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Oblivion. The latter is just a simple text file that lists every active mod you have by name.

One of the things I love about the Oblivion/Tes Mod Managers is that they have a Save Manager feature which allows you to look at any savegame, and it will show you which mods it uses, which of those are not active, and even which ones are not installed on your system. After a reinstall you can use that to see if you forgot to add back any mods. They even have a button that will automatically sync up your save and turn on all the mods it needs. It makes reinstalling the game a lot easier.

I am aware that you should never say never but after a day of trying I'm no nearer reinstalling. I'm thinking that maybe the game ended properly with You-Know-Who and that actually I'm not meant to play it again really.

Does that make sense?
Maybe not.

You are talking about Niamh?

I suspect Phon is talking about Elidh.

Sometimes that's just the way it works out.

My guess is on N and I understand perfectly what he means.

Sorry, Phon Maybe you can rediscover your passion for Oblivion in a few years´ time, or perhaps find a new one to explore

Tried again.
Inadvertantly deleted my load order file.
I am not meant to play this game again. As such I've deleted all of the binaries and all of the files again. For good I think.
I've kept the Skyrim ones but I'll probably ditch them later.
On with The Last Remnant...!

Sorry to hear that, Phon. I can really sense your frustration.

I think you may be wise to let TES things rest for a time. Enjoy Last Remnant for awhile. I hope you will stay active here and, in time, return to the TES fold. Perhaps the frustration will fade and you will feel nostalgia for the good parts about TES.

I agree with Acadian. It´s sad but apparently necessary for you to be away from the game now, it seems. But hopefully you will come back some day, passion restored

I'll revive this thread, however briefly or not so briefly, to mention that I remain undecided as to porting my long-running second play-through to the "new" PC or at some point morphing my Experimental Oblivion Build into an honest play-through. I still lean toward the former (assuming it's possible) but can't rule out the latter. Odd as it might seem to some, one point in favor of starting afresh is the chance to watch my avatar close all those Oblivion Gates again. (You might recall he closed every Gate he chanced upon, which ended up being all be a couple of them.) Those were great fun times I still remember fondly. Too, there are some mod changed I'd like to make that aren't feasible with the second play-through.

No great rush. I've still more mods to audition on the Experimental Build, and visual issues to iron out. That should keep me busy for some time.

Since there are 90 gates and you can only close 60, a fresh start is the only way to get the other 30. OCD requires you to play two games! I don't recall if any of the Oblivion quests had alternative endings, like not being able to choose both sides in Skyrim's Civil War, but the new game would be the chance to take the other path where applicable.