Oblivion

[bubba64]

I have a system that meets the req. for the game, but for some reason after about 5 min. of play ( it runs fine during that time) I hear a 'click (program opening?) the game is reduced to the task bar and I am looking @ my desktop!?
When I return to the game it is locked, nothing works except ctrl+alt+del and ending the program.
Anyone got Ideas?

[TurcoLoco]

What do you have running in the background that shows up in the Task Manager when that happens?

Check the 'Applications' tab to see if anything else is running or showing up as 'not responding', if there is nothing else besides the game, then check the 'Processes' tab and look for the processes running under the current user's profile.

One other good place to check is the Event Viewer > Application logs:
Start > Run > eventvwr.msc > OK

[bubba64]

'if there is nothing else besides the game, then check the 'Processes' tab and look for the processes running under the current user's profile.'
There was 'alg.exe' running. Once I eliminated that the game ran fine. I can finally play the game!!!

[TurcoLoco]

There was 'alg.exe' running. Once I eliminated that the game ran fine. I can finally play the game!!!

You are welcome but alg.exe (Application Layer Gateway Service) is a Windows based non-critical service that provides support for 3rd party protocol plug-ins for Internet Connection Sharing and the Windows Firewall, so I am guessing you were playing this game online and the Windows Firewall might have been creating an issue for the game or one or more of the 3rd party plug-ins was bad....anyhow if it is working and you are fine the way it is, then no worries. If you are not using the Internet Connection Sharing or the Windows Firewall (but instead another 3rd party Firewall program) then you should be fine.

[bubba64]

Updating;
after several hours of play, the problem returned three hours of troubleshooting brought me to try creating a new user profile w/same permissions as the administrator account. 1 week of play and the only error left is that the game occasionally crashes to desktop, but resumes after reopening the program from the task bar. Also, the game always gives me an error when the game is closed ' oblivion.exe has created an error and will be closed (blah blah)' send report, debug. Windows error report is useless, they've never seen this error before. But the game runs fine otherwise.

[jholland1964]

Give the exact full wording of the error.

[TurcoLoco]

Give the exact full wording of the error.

Also, assuming this is not a copied or download game nor you are using any fixes (trainer execution, dll hacks or No-CD exes), I'd uninstall the game (save your profile and saved games just in case but most newer games will prompt you during the uninstall process if you wanted to do so).
Move your saved game data to a location other than where it is in by default.
Reboot the computer, then remove the game folder under 'Program Files' folder. Afterwards, re-install game. If there were any updates (patches) for the game, first see if the default installation ran fine or not before installing the patches.