Oblivion incompatible with HP software

Overview

If you have HP Software installed, be sure to terminate the running programs before starting Oblivion. This is a known problem and this is how I handle resolving it. I have an HP PhotoSmart 8450 and an HP ScanJet 4600. If you don't stop the HP software, HP will interrupt the PC (and Oblivion) to "Dial Home" and do whatever it does. When this happens, Oblivion gets very upset and you have to exit Oblivion.

Example

For example, I have a batch file that uses "pskill.exe" to close all HP-Related software that is running before I start Oblivion:

Contents of "START_OBLIVION.BAT"

@ECHO OFF
CLS
REM ** Stop Incompatible Programs before starting Oblivion. **
pskill hpcmpmgr.exe
pskill hpgs2wnd.exe
pskill hpgs2wnf.exe
pskill hphmon06.exe
pskill hptskmgr.exe
pskill hpwuSchd2.exe
REM ** Start Oblivion. **
"E:\Games\Oblivion\OblivionLauncher.exe"

pskill is a free program available from SysInternals/Microsoft

If you prefer to kill the processes by hand or need to find the names of the HP processes, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the task manager (Windows XP Pro users need to click Task Manager).

Click the Processes tab and the click Image Name column to sort by name. Find each process that starts with HP and right-click on it and select End Process

Reference

LHammonds Oblivion Mods Site