Surprise, Bethesda!: The folder path to My Documents says "Documents and Settings\me\My Documents". Hm... what does this mean? Perhaps it means that files, which are being written by Oblivion (I'm sure we all agree they are SETTINGS), are actually meant to go somewhere else in "Documents and Settings\me" that isn't called documents.
Hmm... "Application Data", perhaps?
Hmm... "Application Data", perhaps?
Dude, you do realize that My Documents is the ONLY safe place to put the file, right? Not everyone is running on the PC as an administrator and can be manipulating data files in the install directory! Plus, you could have multiple user accounts on the machine, and want each of them to have their own INI file!
The stupidest thing a person can do is use an admin account as the everyday user account on their machine. You shouldn't be playing a game, or doing anything but installing software and updates, as an admin. Yeah, I know that it is very common to run as root on Windows machines, which is why Windows machines are always getting screwed.
I hate it, absolutely hate it when some idiot software company desides that they are going to store saved games, or game settings that change, or anything else, in the Program Files directory. This isn't the days of Windows 95, and you shouldn't have to be logged on as root to play a game. Cudos to the guys at Bethesda for actually knowing how a modern operating system is supposed to work.