Windows 7: Oblivion not running in a window when i open it.

I'm running windows 7 64 bit and well.. After going past the first screen - you know the little one, where you can choose how you want to load it and such - well if i choose to load it in a window it doesn't load. I click play and a small black box quickly comes on and off the screen and then nothing happens. And if i highlight the icon on the taskbar it shows a picture of oblivion working fine. But its not working on my screen.

The annoying thing is, it was working fine not even a day ago. Could do with some help about how to fix this please.

You need to provide a bit more information like system specs.

Tips on Troubleshooting Game Issues

In my experience, there are three things that can cause this.

1. Your GPU/CPU/RAM is inadequate (usually the GPU, ESPECIALLY with Integrated GPU's).
2. Your GPU driver is out of date/corrupted (not typical at all, happens maybe once every few years).
3. You need to mess with the game's resolution settings (almost always the culprit).

I have experienced all three, and they all present in mostly the same way: the game will appear to be launching, but then Windows will inform you after a few seconds that it has "stopped working" and then it will freeze up with a black screen and with a little black square to the upper-left corner and you have to end the process in task manager (Crtl+Alt+Del) to get out of it, or perform a cold-shutdown.

In fact, I have this problem crop up with Fallout 3 recently. If I choose any resolution OTHER than 1920x1080, this will happen - especially with the "letterbox" resolutions. So try that first... change Oblivion's resolution in the settings and see if that doesn't fix it for you. I would also try toning the game's graphics down a notch too.


And, please do fill in your system specifications to the best of your ability. It really helps us to help you. If we don't know what you're running on, we'll not be able to be of much help at all in figuring out the problem.

Sorry about the little information i gave, ermm I've filled in the blanks on my system spec. Although I'll give the resolution thing a go. That sounds about right - I keep messing with all the resolution settings so I might have just put it on the wrong setting or something

So I changed the resolution back to what it was originally when it worked in a window and it still doesn't work. Also no errors actually appear, it's just the mouse disappears and then the game sound works but no window appears with the game. Its something to do with the graphics but I'm really unsure.

OK, what I would suggest next is that you uninstall and reinstall Oblivion and then see if that doesn't work. If after that it's still not working, I'd recommend rolling the system back to the last date the game was working through Windows Restore (if, of course, you've set it up to periodically create a restore point on it's own - if not, that's not going to be an option here) and if you do that, I'd recommend backing up your personal files and game saves just in case. Worst case scenario would be a clean install of the OS (again, after backing up personal files and game saves etc.), because this could also be a "hosed" OS issue (moderately rare, but it happens).

But first, are you sure that windows updates/driver updates didn't cause this? Sometimes drivers are updated automatically through windows updates and that also could be the issue here. Even malware can screw with games, so also run your AV's and check that.

Last but not least, if none of those work... it could mean there's something going on with your GPU itself so I'd recommend running Nvidia's test utility, if they have one (not sure, I use ATI which has such a utility with CCC so I can't help much with the Nvidia stuff).

Good luck and I hope one of those does the trick for you.

This is a game we're talking about, there's no reinstall the OS, especially if

1- He doens't have any other problems to warrant such a task.
2- He's not having issues with Other games/software/hardware.

With that said, the OP is still not providing a lot of info so....

1- Is this the retail disk, a Steam version, or downloaded version?

2- Did you patch the game?

3- Did you update your DX files?

4- Did you update your video card drivers?

5- Are you having problems with other games?

6- Are you having OS issues

These are but a few questions which are also in the guide I linked to - Tips on Troubleshooting Game Issues

Help us help you by providing some info - How To Ask For Help

Thanks.

Not trying to be argumentative here, but that is the exact reason why I did say it would be the "worst case scenario" and listed it towards the last of the suggestions I gave and because it is entirely possible that there is something wrong with the OS files to cause things like this to occur, especially seeing as how he's stated it worked perfectly fine and then all of a sudden did not, and without any known changes having been made. That to me indicates something deeper going on than a simple case of a game just not wanting to work on a particular computer (that usually happens when a game doesn't work period, not just some of the time). Either that, or the OS 'forgot' some of the game's files somewhere/can't get to the pathway, and once again, for my systems at least, that means a total restore after trying everything else first - and usually, the problem gets solved and doesn't recur after that's done (I factory restore every year to keep everything in-line and fresh anyway - especially the registry).

In fact, I am currently having a problem with this very game and similar issue right now. It's installed on an external drive and is all of a sudden claiming it can't find Oblivion.exe after having run perfectly also. So, because I've already tried everything else to fix it the 'easy way', I'm going to just factory restore the entire system and be done with it the 'hard way' (simply because it is a pain in the rear), which always works, than the easy way (easy only if you know what the problem is exactly, which is hardly ever the case in these instances).


OP: I'll let sygnus21 handle it from here, since he seems to know more about it. Hope you fix it, in any case. Good luck.

I'm not trying to be argumentative either.

My reason for dismissing the OS reinstall recommendation is simply because the OP is only reporting that Oblivion isn't working. He's given no other information, which is why I posted a few questions for him.

He needs to provide more information before we can move further.