I have a relative who is wondering if it's better to install to HD?

I believe on release it was actually better to play off the disc and not reccomended by Bethesda to install to HD, has this been patched?

It has been patched. I started a thread like this a week ago and the general advice I got was to install it.

I ahve not played much since installing it to the HD so I can't really say, but I haven't noticed any difference as of yet.

Any game that you are going to play a bunch should be installed to the HDD just so you don't have to hear the DVD drive grind (why that is so loud I will never understand).

However, the game performance, of most any game, but Skyrim for sure, is improved when playing from the HDD

Install it to avoid disk burn. The damn thing span so fast the first time I put it in that the XBox started flying around the room.

Seriously though, install it.

i'm considering this as well, but I remember watching some videos where people said the game had better visual quality if you ran it off of the disc without installing it to the HD. I couldn't really understand how this could be true, anyone know anything about that?