Just tried Morrowind under Windows Vista

Couple things of note :

1.The game must be run as administrator. The option is under compatibility.
2.With the nVidia drivers, attempting to force any kind of 3D setting such as anti-aliasing doesn't work.
3.To use anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, you must use the Morrowind Graphics Extender. This also works under Windows Vista provided it is run with administrative privileges.

Game performance seems to be near that of Windows XP. Haven't had a chance to do any actual benchmarks.

Have you tried playing Morrowind on a tweaked Vista.. if it can be tweaked like with services and start up items and the eyecandy GUI?

The best tweak is to set up games to disable desktop compositing. That way, aeroglass is turned off when you run a game and back on when you close it. The desktop compositing is the principle reason why Vista had slower benchmarks at first.

This is also true for XP and 2000, so I am not surprised. Have you messed with Oblivion yet?


Thanks - that is very useful information. I will bookmark your thread.

In XP and 2000 most people run as administrator anyways so you don't have to worry about having administrative privileges. With Windows Vista, unless you know your way around MMC and the advanced areas of Windows, you are forced to run as a regular user and then manually elevate to administrator privileges.

As for Oblivion, it's not my cup of tea and I really haven't had much reason to try it on Vista but from what I've read, it works fine.

Finally, here is a screenshot of the desktop compositing option I was talking about so people know where to find it.

http://img100.imageshack.us/my.php?image=m...indvistajw2.jpg

Thanks for the screenshot. If it's not too much trouble, can you provide a walk-through on how to elevate yourself to Administrator access?

The option for doing that is also in that screenshot. On the link properties or the command properties (in the game browser), just check "Run this program as an administrator.". It's on the same page as the disable desktop composition option.

Ok couple more things

1.Exiting the ship for the first time when you begin the game doesn't work at first and gives me a black screen with the NVidia drivers. You have to alt-tab out and back in. This is the only area transition that I've found has this problem, once you have already started the game, there appear to be no problems going from area to area.

2.Other than the issue above, I advise against alt-tabbing out of the game. The Elder Scrolls games are famous for not working with alt-tab and Windows Vista compounds the problems that Morrowind has with alt-tabbing. About half the time I've tried to alt-tab out, the game has crashed. But then again, it does that a lot under XP as well.

Disabling desktop composition does not effect my performance at all, in any games.

Also, you can force both AA and AF. You have to use the global settings rather than craeting an app profile for Morrowind itself. App settings dont save for some reason.

I'm running Morrowind GOTY with a GForce 7900 card on Windows Vista Premium. When I start a new game, I can't get out of the ship that the game starts out in. All the graphics run smoothly, sound is great, but when I open the hatch to get out, it stops. Sound effects move on, I don't. I checked the Task Manager and it says the game is "Running". Help!!!

Same dude. I'm running Vista Ultimate, I start a new game... looks amazing btw, try to open the door, and the whole game is BLACK. I can still hear sounds. I have a 7900 GTX. I don't know whats wrong... its makin' me mad though.


After more searching I found this...
------
Ok couple more things

1.Exiting the ship for the first time when you begin the game doesn't work at first and gives me a black screen with the NVidia drivers. You have to alt-tab out and back in. This is the only area transition that I've found has this problem, once you have already started the game, there appear to be no problems going from area to area.

2.Other than the issue above, I advise against alt-tabbing out of the game. The Elder Scrolls games are famous for not working with alt-tab and Windows Vista compounds the problems that Morrowind has with alt-tabbing. About half the time I've tried to alt-tab out, the game has crashed. But then again, it does that a lot under XP as well.

-----
I'm going to try it... and tell you if it works.

Well that didn't work for me... maybe it will work for you.


Ok I found a fix that worked for me. If you have Morrwind Graphics Extender installed.... uninstall it. It worked for me.

I'm having exactly the same problem. Another post said playing as administrator might work. Anyone know how you do that?

Jeronimo

OK so I finally figured out how to get into compatibility. I set it to administrator, but I still crash at the very beginning when I'm trying to open the hatch to get out of the boat. Alt-Tab didn't work. If someone else with Vista figures out a way to make this game work please share it. This is really pissing me off.

Hey dude I tried the alt-tab trick and it worked! It first looked like it just froze up the game, but I pressed it a few times, then the screen minimized. I clicked back on the screen and it was advanced. Try it out a few times.




Thanks for the fix dude, it worked! Appreciate it, Bro

This is just a tip for my Brother Gamers. I have saved character profiles that I take around like a memory card, and just load them into the root "Saves" file folder. I've done this many times, but good 'ole Vista is giving me crap. For some reason the "Saves" folder is hidden, so use the windows seardh option, select C drive, and enable hidden file searching. Have Fun!

Just a note on your post: I loaded my previous Saved Games into the root "Saves" file folder to continue my progress. After setting the game to run as "Administrator", I kept getting the security prompts to allow the game to run. when I tried loading my profiles, they were no longer there. I replaced the profiles again and removed the "Administrator" setting, and it worked fine. BEWARE FOR POSSIBLE DATA LOSS

Yeah tab-alt worked for me too. I was beginning to think this one was going back in the drawer. Glad I got in. It's a huge world inside here.

Another troubleshooting tip (for the benefit of this thread): Try running in XP compatibility mode. Reference: http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...t&p=9169916

EDIT: For the time being, I will be referring all Vista problems (new topics) to this thread. It seems to have the most info and troubleshooting tips.

Hello,

I've been playing Morrowind III, Game Of The Year Edition on a new PC I have with Vista. Everything worked fine until I got to the town of Caldera. Now I find myself getting stuck inside buildings. When I go to leave the building, I get the progress bar that says "Loading Exterior", it reaches 100% and then the game just locks up.

I've tried some of the hints in this forum, but nothing works. Also, when I try to run the games as an Administrator, my saved games are all gone.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

From another thread:

Some mods i noticed to have problems with is Morrowind comes alive and Balmora expanded. Turning off these mods and using wyre mash to clean up the save files helps.

I'm d/ling a alt start mod. I'll let you know if that fixes the ship problem...

no good, still seems to freeze up when exiting initial cell .

trying w/ an xp virtual machine, I'll let ya know how it goes...

encounters a problem and needs to close...

Have you tried the tricks mentioned in posts #5 and #11 about alt tabbing and MGE?

tried alt-tabbing, don't have MGE installed to begin with.

VM only has 8MB of video ram . can't change it from what I can tell.

XP virtual machine? How are you accomplishing that?

I also have a problem with morrowind's launching window. After I had done everything with changing the compatibility and setting it to administer level when it begins to load the game up to the starting page I get this ERROR window. On the window it says:

Music Error: Can not play file. Data File/Music/Special/morrowind title.mp3

I am not much as a computer person and I really don't know what's wrong.

ANY SUGGESTIONS?

using VirtualPC 2007. Microsoft is releasing the virtualPC programs for free. Only problem is I can't figure out how to force emulation of a better video card.

Morrowind does work on vista. How ever doesnt work with 1024x768 video crashes When loading. At 800x600 works fine. Can someone tell me if you got working 1024x768.

Dunno, but I do have working 1600 x 1200 here. I'll try 1024 x 768 next time I play.

I got it working. I had to turn off pix shading that was causing it troubles.

I'm running Vista, and I don't have to run Morrowind under the admin account...

this is wierd. All confusing. Now moo cow can run it without being a administrator? Why do some people don't have to do things, but others do?
Also if Morrowind doesn't work good now, will it someday?
when it comes to software, im not the greatest. I know alot about hardware

I downloaded Vista on my computer hoping it would play smoother and faster. it does but now the music does is scratch and chirp. When starting the program music is fine and the movie is fine; but when the Oblivion name comes up there is a loud chirp. Then the game has scratching insted of music. I Belive it has something to do with Vista because it did not have this problem with xp. I ran sound checks and the computer does not find a problem. I have been trying for days now and have run out of Ideas, I do not want to wipe my computer clean and see if starting from scratch will solve the problems. Pleeeeeasssseee help. [color=#33CC00]

@headmistress
What sort of audio hardware do you have? It's possible you have a driver problem.

Hello!
I bought Windows Vista Ultimate too and I installed the 32 Bit version last week.
Unfortunately, I had to be annoyed with the "hatch-lag" too. But later, when I tried to use the Alt+Tab shortcut, when the lag appears, it just worked.

Thank you, for the great idea with the shortcut - It was really exasperating and I thought of reinstalling my old Windows XP system. But now, I have to catch up playing Morrowind.


Best regards and good night,
Rob

anyone know if it works with mods?

Yes, it should work with at least the mods that have .esm/.esp files, plus visual enhancer packs, etc. External utilities such as MWE, MWSE, MGE, etc. may or may not work with Vista.

HI all

Am using windows vista ultimate

Was having the same problem as everyone else (not being able to get of ship at begining) Tryed all listed solutions in forum but none worked.

Have now got morrowwind working fine. I just set game up with administrator rights and changed my windows theme to "classic windows"

And now the game working fine.

Hope this helps anyone else out who having trouble with vista!!!!!!

Thank you much. That's the kind of info we need.

I recently upgraded my computer with Vista and, just like some others, got the "Cannot find/Load Snowflake" issue that appears when Bloodmoon is installed. However though some experimentation I have found out that the answer was right in front of us the whole time!
All you have to do us Left-Click on the Morrowind EXE or Shortcut and click on the "Run as Administrator" icon with the little security shield and BloodMoon loads up fine with mods and everything!

I just read something about that today in the Oblivion forum. So it needs to be done with Morrowind too, eh? Cool and thanks!

I'll be merging this in with the Morrowind vs Vista thread in a day or two so we have all the good stuff in one place when we need it.

I got this comp from dell about 3 weeks ago with Vista. Sat infront of the screen for 6 hours trying to get past the hatch. I didn't even know this forum existed until 2 days ago. By the way start the launcher go to options and turn off pixel shading it will get you past the hatch and you only have to do it once. Although I still have some problems when equiping stuff from mods. Original items seem to work fine. Doesn't do it all the time though. Mods seem to lock the game up too. Not all do this and complexity of the mod doesn't seem to matter, either it will crash or it won't.

Here's another problem I've encountered. Anyone tried to change their MW.ini file yet? I have and can't seem to get any changes Made AND Saved. Unless I turn off the UAC option in user accounts in the control menu. It does create another problem though. With UAC tuned off I can change the .ini file and save it but for some reason with UAC off esps arent recogized with the launcher or the CS, with the exception of the better bodies esp. Anyone else seen this problem?

To edit morrowind.ini with UAC on,just cut and paste the contents of morrowind.ini into a new instance of notepad and do your editing there.Save to desktop your edited file as morrowind.ini,then drop it onto the "real" morrowind.ini file in the Program Files/Bethesda Softworks/Morrowind directory.Backup morrowind.ini first goes without saying...

I had no problems with the hatch at all,so not sure what the deal is with that.Didn't need to turn pixel shading off or do anything else.Just made the morrowind launcher compatible with win xp sp2 and disabled desktop compositing.

I have been playing morrowind on vista and everything seems to be going fine. But whenever I try to save, it gives me an error message.

I cannot save no matter what I try.

My game is one from before I got vista, could this have anything to do with this?

Make sure you run Morrowind as Adminstrator - right-click the icon you use to launch it and select Run as Administrator. Or, go into the properties of the icon and select this as the default.

Thanks, it works now.

K... I finally got it up and running (I have to start the game in 800x600, once it's running I can change to 1024x768). Is there any way I can change the resolution to match the widescreen format on this crappy laptop? Intel integrated graphics and everything, and the only resolutions I have are 640, 800, and 1024.

If you go here and download FPS Optimizer, it allows you to change resolutions to those not normally allowed with Morrowind.

Click on the "change registry settings" button on the opening page and you'll have a wide selection to choose from. Then, if you remove the check from the novice mode box and go to the misc/2 tab, you'll be able to change your aspect ratio to match your widescreen. It's in the Field of View controls.

There's a newer version of this program, but stick with the one linked (v1.96).

Hello everyone,


I'm new on this forum, and i have tremendous problems with morrowind running on vista.
I've tried these steps:
1. uninstalling and reinstalling the game
2. update drivers from Nvidia (I have a GeForce 7300 Go 128Ram = standard drivers with vista )
3. Set the game to XP Compatible mode
4. Ran the game as Asministrator
5. Set the theme to windows classic and then ran the game again
6. Set the resolution to 800 x 600, no anti-alliasing

And all this didn't worked

I have a brand-new Laptop with a good configuration which could (normally) easily by far run morrowind (my older machine even could, only 64mb Video-ram)
I really hope there is a solution, because I love to play the game...

Thanks,


Geronnimo

I have been playing on vista for a little while now but am experiencing a problem suddenly. I am in nerano manor in Balmora and whenever I try to leave it says "loading area" at the bottom of the screen. Once it is full loaded the game crashes. I have no way of getting out of nerano manor! Can someone please help me get out?

I have read through all these posts about crashes using Vista. I got the crash trying to get out of the boat then I tried the Alt+Tab trick and after a few trys, it worked. Then when I went to load a saved game it loaded, BUT when I tried to go out the door, CRASH! I tried the Alt+Tab trick and it worked after a few trys. Then I loaded a game that I saved outside and it wouldnt load just froze on "loading exterior". Then when I re-loaded an older save and did the Alt+Tab trick to get out the door and as I was leaving Balmora it froze again. Then it froze another time when I was trying to complete the slave quest by freeing him. I have tried the compatability trick (play as XP) I have tried the admin thing on the shortcut. I have tried turning off the pixal shading. I have tried turning off the Vista rights program. I have a brand new Dell laptop with duo 2 core 2.0 and 2 gigs ram and the geforce 7900 256mb card. I dont have any of the expansions loaded nor do I have the graphics extender loaded. Where theres a will theres a way right?

I was having the same problem today when I installed Morrowind on my new Athlon 64 X2 3800+. It did the same thing in Suran after I entered the House of Delight. I would get the "loading area" at the bottom of the screen and then...nothing. I had already changed the properties to run it in XP compatibility mode, disabled desktop compotition and had the run as administrator checked. Morrowind just did not want the load the new cell though but then I tried something else which made little sense.

I started Morrowind by right clicking it and starting it as an administrator and this time it worked. To me this seems odd since I have the run as administrator box already checked in properties. Since then this is how I have started Morrowind and it is working fine with Vista *knocks on wood*. At least today it is.

I still think Vista is crap though as no operating system should hog as much RAM as Vista does.

Hey guys...

Brand new to the forums. I just bought a new computer a few weeks ago, and unfortunately it came with vista. After numerous attempts, I finally came here to find out how to get Morrowind running by selecting the admin box in the properties. (I was getting the load snowflake error message after installing bloodmoon.) So at any rate, the game is running now, and I was able to get through the hatch. I tried installing a few headpacks...well, because I like my character to be hot, and when I get to the race menu, the mods don't show up at all. They are installed right- as I used them on my previous system, and yes, I have the data file checked. The game acts as if it's not installed at all. Has anyone found a way around this?

Thank you much for your help, I really appreciate it.

When you installed the mods, 1) Did it come as an EXE installer? If so, make sure you run that installer as Administrator, since it writes to a folder that limited users don't have write access to. 2) If ZIP, I would try extracting them to your desktop first, then cut & paste it to the Morrowind folder. I suspect the ZIP extractor can't write the files to the Morrowind folder.

Or, you can dig in the Control Panel for the option to turn off the UAC.

Well none of that worked...anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks...

I just came up with another idea. After you launch the Morrowind Launcher and select the mod, exit the Morrowind Launcher and re-launch it. Does it stay selected? If not, you'll need to launch the Morrowind Launcher As Administrator. Other than that, I'm out of ideas.

They're still selected. Thanks though.

I noticed when it's loading the game, it will say at the bottom "loading morrowind.esp" ect...on my old comptuer it would load mods as well, but it doesn't do that now. There's some sort of breakdown between the game starting and loading I think.

Try using a simple mod like All Boat Ports. It's only an esp (no meshes or textures) and all it does is allow travel between all of the boats in the game.

Didn't load, like the others.

There's got to be something wrong with my compy...

I'll PM damicatz and ask him to take a look. He's had quite a bit of experience with Vista and may have an idea.

There are a few programs that allow VM's. MS makes one.




IIRC, VM2003 is needed for XP, VM2007 for Vista. You can only get VM2003 at non MS sites, and these packages only work on XP Pro, not XP Home. Not sure if Vista has any limitations due to version.

Thanks. People here are so nice

Wow, I feel like an idiot.

I changed the exe to admin in the folder, but not the desktop launcher icon. That fixed it.


Thanks guys!

So the trick to getting help in this board is having boobs? hmmmm...

Sure doesnot hurt.....

If you have GOTY, install the expansions. Even if you do not enable them in Data Files, it updates the game to correct some issues.

If not, install the expansions, and get the 1.6.1820 patch for your version (american, or european) See if that helps.

...wow.

You're assuming I HAVE boobs. And that they're possibly nice too. For all you know, I could look like gollum.

I wasnt assuming anything. All I know is I have posted twice on here and never received any input, then a girl comes on and all these dudes are like "Here I come to save the day!".

Moving on... Thanks to HEY YOU for the suggestion. I will try that.

Yup. Virtual PC 2007 is free, and it only runs on certain OSes. On the Vista side, it runs only on Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate, not on either Home editions. On the XP side, Professional, MCE, and Tablet PC editions (the latter two are Professional with a few extra features added to them), not the Home edition.

I now have Virtual PC 2007 running here, and it runs quite nicely, better than some versions of VMWare I've seen. But you can't really play any games on it, though - only 8 MB of video RAM is emulated. And it has other limitations, but since it's free, you can download and try it out anyway. Here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/...pc/default.mspx

That's one of the problems with Vista nicodemus, is that most of us haven't any experience with it. If you've already gone through the fixes in this thread without any improvement, we're pretty much stuck for an answer.

I hope you didn't take offense to my reply I didn't take offense to yours...I was only kidding. It actually took a few days to get some replies. I'm sure there's not really any bias here...after all, you never REALLY know whos a girl or a boy here. I've been wrong before...

I wish I could help you out...Vista is kind of a pain right now. I've only had it for about 3 weeks (it came with my computer, unfortunately) so I guess that makes me one of the few pioneers on it-- but unfortunately I know only basic troubleshooting. Good luck with it.

No no no, I aint got no beef.
I'm gonna try loading the expansions and see if that does anything. If it doesnt, guess its going on the shelf because as we all know, theres nothing worse than your game freezing up 6-7 times and you forget to save something and have to do it over yada yada yada. Im thinking about maybe buying a external hard drive and setting it up with XP and boot off that for my games. Anyone with any experience with that kinda thing? How much do you lose performance wise if the HD is external connected via USB?

I've never run a USB drive, but I suspect you'll take a pretty good performance hit waiting for cells to load.

Do you have enough free space to dual boot with XP? There's what seems to be a pretty good walk through on this page. Make sure you backup any critical stuff first if you go that route.

That VistaBootPro they mention is here.

I've been running morrowind goty for a while now on xp and it works just fine.
When i installed it on to my brothers vista computer I had problems just getting it to run. finally i
did but now all the exterior door & clothes are flickering real bad. Its running as Administrator,
Xp compatible mode. any help would be greatly appreciated.

Flickering is a problem associated with integrated graphics chips. Could you begin a new topic and post the dxdiag report from the affected machine?

Do the following immediately after restarting your system.

Click Start, then Run and type dxdiag into the box and click OK. When the loading bar stops, run the tests on the Display and Sound Pages. Then return to the System Page and click the Save All Information button. Then open file dxdiag.txt which should be on your desktop. Copy and paste the entire thing to another post in this thread.

Don't post it in this topic because the length will make it very unwieldy.

I installed MW on my computer, with Vista, and it works fine. Only "problem" I have is I can't seem to find where the save folder is located. I have all hidden files on, so I can see them, and its just not in the MW folder. I even did a search but couldn't find them. Any ideas?

I recently bought Morrowind for PC (standard, not GOTY, no expansions, no nothin...was all I could find, and didn't feel like ordering it). I run a desktop with Xp, and the game works splendidly. My laptop is satan (see: Vista). It has a geforce 6150 go (did not buy it for gaming, but the card is MORE than capable of handling the game), 2 gigs DDR3, blah blah blah. I have the same problem as everyone else. I alt+tab to get out of the hatch, and that works (sometimes). At random places in the game (usually places that have to load, like when entering a different area), the game freezes, and I have to task manager kill it. To make things worse, the game save that this was will no longer load. I can load the auto saves for the same character, and it works fine and dandy... but when I try to load my save game (that is in the general area where the lock up happens), it simply stays at the laoding exterior screen @ 100%... for evverrrrrrrr (Sandlot ). I have done everything suggested... run as admin, I have XP compatibility service pack 2 checked, desktop composit, run in classic mode, windows mode, shader off, resolution down, full screen mode, tried it all. It worked fine for a while, but all of a sudden, when I was doing the gathering quests for Ajira in the Mage's guild, BOOM! Now all of a sudden, every character locks up when I change zones. Dare I say... help? lol. Thanks.

Any chances of the folks from Bethesda helping us on this one? A patch, a fix, a mod, anything?

my laptop has all of the specs for morrowind (i don't know about video card, i don't know where to find what brand it is) and every time i press 'play' i get an error messege that says:
"Failed to load snowflake: Meshes\BM_Snow_01.nif." what do i do??? I am running Vista, i uninstalled it. twice. i installed morrowind, then tribunal, then bloodmoon, the the bloodmoon patch. Whats up, what do I do...HELP!!!! I've even asked Amy B. @ tech. support and she said post here...WTF is going on??? If anyone can help, email me @ tech_e_boi@yahoo.com Thanks

I had the same problem coming up. You need to run the program as an administrator, meaning right click on the .exe program morrowind (the icon) and click on properties. Somewhere in there it should have a box to check, saying something like "run program as administrator." click that, then try it.

Hey, I finally got it to work, i was trying that on the launcher, not the .exe like you said. plus i had to say 'cancel' to say 'yes to all' and certian scripts or something. But, what's up with the water and certain doors? the flicker and the water looks like crap! Got a fix for it yet?

Everett
Ultimate Ninja Warior

alright i havent read the entire thread but id just like to thank the thread maker cause this thread (from what i have read) has helped a ton...i can play morrowind with both expansions now! on VISTA!

That might be your graphics card, just from what I've been reading in this thread. I've had no problems with flickering or any other graphics issues as of yet.

Anyone experiencing the same issue as I? The game locking up when you change areas? And then when you reload, it stays at the Loading Exterior (100%) and locks up?

Bump...?

Nope...read something about that on the other pages, though...

Don't suppose they had a fix that wasn't listed here? I've done all this stuff =(

Dunno if this was mentioned before, but, about the alt tabing [in XP atleast], if you just do a ctrl+alt+delte...morrowind minimizes just fine. I have never had it crash this way.

Mine will crash if I use ctrl+alt+del but alt+tab works fine for me...I wonder if it has to do with the version of Vista and your system? Mine's never crashed otherwise though...

Since you are all on Vista, I'm guessing Morrowind can be used with DX10?


Thanks in advance,

Stricken

EDIT: Well, as of now, its not even reading the disc, but since I bought it back in 2003, I doubt thats a Vista problem.

Ok, for those of you that are having trouble finding your files I've found out part of the problem. I had view hidden files and all that jazz turned on and was missing files as well. However, when I started playing with "permissions" in the security tab of properties I was able to get things to appear. But, permissions get "inherited" and this can cause problems further down your file structure. At this point I've gotten all of my files to appear except for one folder. Despite this, I think I did so by making a mess of my permissions in the morrowind folder. So, if anyone knows more about this and how to do this easily, efficiently, and maybe clean up mistakes in this area do tell. I'll look into it myself some more at a different time. I'm currently sick of fighting with this "new and improved" Windows.

Well I just got Vista, had some problems, fixed with "play as administrator" and changed the compability. Now everything is hunky dorry except mods. I'm not running MGE or anything. My texture replacer is working to. The two mods I'm worried most about not working (if that makes sence) are Better Heads and Bodies. Both do not work and just show me white bodies and faces.

I don't see Classic Windows under compability like some people are talking about.
I just have Windows...
95
98/Windows Me
NT 4.0 (Service Pack 5)
2000
XP (Service Pack 2)
Server 2003 (Service Pack 1)

XP seems to work best for me but I havn't played around with it to much.
If you can help at all, please do.

IIRC, Better Bodies installs with an executable, so it shouldn't be a problem with misplaced files. I'd suggest you start a topic in the MW Mods forum and see if anyone over there knows of any mod problems with Vista.

Well how about other mods? Do you have advice for mods that aren't executable?

Oh oh oh! Does it matter that I dled the mods with a non-vista comp and transered it to my Vista via travel drive?

Pretty sure I cracked the case, but I have no idea what to do with my results. So as I said I transfered the plugin files with my travel drive. Now on my non-vista comp the plugin files are under the type "Morrowind Plugin Data File". But when I take to the Vista, the files are under this type "Elder Scrolls Construction Set File". Even on the travel drive the files have been...changed. Even the little pocket knife pic isn't coming up beside the plugins, just a sheet of paper.

Now I think this means I need to convert the files on the Vista comp to data files. Or do I just need to put them somewhere else? Or am I completely off track?

I think that’s just what Vista is recognizing the files as, not what they actually are. As long as they have the same extension (.esp) then they should work.

I'm making some headway. (2 words?) Ive got mods to work by going into the properties of the plugins and changing the "open with" to Morrowind. Hope that might help some peeps. All mods that is, that don't require meshes, like light_300 and animal behavior.

So this must mean something is wrong with my meshes folder but I can't see what it is. Its in the same exact place as on my XP and they're all NIF files too. Maybe I need to put my Meshes foler somwhere else or rename it.

Any ideas? Ohhhhhhhh man I'm so close.

I have finally triumphed over my hardships so worry not for me anymore.

The solution to my problem was so simple I'm too embarrased to say. Thank you all for the help.

I have the same problems as you. Every now and then I have to completely shut it down. My comp has yet to crash though. Only the game has crashed for me. I doubt Bethesda can do anything; I think Vista just has [censored] drivers.

Hey. I got Morrowind GOTY for pc and i tried it. A couple Notes

It works Well if you run as administrator with desktop compositing off and bloodmoon and tribunal .esm files deselected. Once you have created your character, reselect the files, run as normal, but leave desktop compositing off. If your wondering how to run as administrator, right-click the icon and click run as administrator. If you are in the administrator profile, it will just ask for your permission. if you are not, it will ask for the administrator password.

i found some places where the game freeze, one was the council cha,bers in sadrith mora and some other areas from tamriel rebuilt, but after installing the new forceware drivers for vista i can play witout a single CTD

Same problem here, I hate this garbage. I mean I pay good money for an OS, new everything, etc... and get poor service. Someone PM me when they release drivers worth a damn so I can finally enjoy this game again. Ugh, Nvidia and Microsoft need to hurry up...

For anyone who doesn't care to alt-tab, alt crtl del works good, then just turn on the program. I was having the same hatch troubles, resoulution troubles, and admin troubles until I read this. Hints for better performance: Run in XP SP 2 mode, visual themes off, and what I mentioned before. Also, it helps if you take your gadget bar off as when you turn around sometimes it blinks through.

EDIT: I'm getting mad. It worked once, then crashed as soon as I tried to A) Load a game or Exit the Hatch no matter what I do or C) Crash as soon as I go out of the Bitter Coast Region or D) The guard in the ship never comes to release me. Any help?

I am running Windows Vista Home Premium on a AMD Turion 64 X2 (1.6 ghz) and NVidia GeForce Go! 6150. My sound is fine, I just bought this laptop, and I want my games!

try the new forceware drivers, it worked for me 8)

I have the newest drivers that Nvidia seems to offer, and alt-tabbing does nothing at all. All I want to do is just get out of the hatch and see Seyda Neen. It's all I'm asking. If I install the new update for Morrowind will it change this? Or will it agitate the problem?

I also have Vista. I have been playing Morrowind just fine, until I loaded Tribunal and Bloodmoon. Now, I can't save the game. I receive this message: Unable to complete operation due to failure renaming temp file. Temp file remains. Continue running executable? Yes No So, I uninstalled Tribunal and Bloodmoon, but I still cannot save. Thanks for any help.

You need to run Morrowind as Administrator. That error indicates that it doesn't have write access to the folder where it's trying to save your game.

Yes, after reading many of the messages, I did change that; however, I got that message again. I wonder if I will have to lose the game and just start over installing it, etc. Thanks for your response.

I hate to lose my game. Do you think because it parses quests, since I began with just Morrowind, that might cause the problem? Initally, I did get the faliure to load the snowflake mesh, but this time it did load everything. I just can't save the game. Thanks for any help.

Here is something people should try who are having trouble running Morrowind on vista. Take the morowind folder out of the C:\program file\Bethesda Softworks\ folder and put it just in the C:.
You'll have to click on the Morrowind launcher in the Morrowind folder to run the game, but you don't have to run the game under administrator. That should help with mods that don't work when morrowind has administrative rights. I did this a couple months ago and haven't had a problem since.