I recently got a new rig without a DVD drive. Since I've bought an external DVD drive it would have been possible to use that for playing Oblivion. But I just didn't like that. I wanted to buy Oblivion again on GOG but the game wasn't available there and using something like a crack version is no option for me. Steam would have been another option .. but for a modder Steam is also no real option. I also dislike Steams constant updates and the necessity of being online.

So here is one solution I discovered: Using a bootable USB stick with the image of the original Oblivion DVD and a DVD emulator.

• What you need is a USB stick with at least 5GB capacity.
• Make the stick bootable. You should find some useful guide on the web how to do it.
• Make an image (.iso) of the original Oblivion DVD with eg. ImgBurn
• Copy the image file of Oblivon onto the stick.
• I recommend using the portable version of WinCDEmu. Install it directly on the stick.
• Start WinCDEmu on the stick and mount the image file on the stick. Now you should be ready to play the game without DVD or DVD drive.