Have read the game save and Steam cloud problems. I have not really had any problems other than the local saves getting "out of sync" with the cloud saves when I switch between my two computers. (to be expected)

However,
The thing that really makes me mad is this, I loaded and registered the game on my desktop and played a bit. I then later tried to load it onto the laptop computer and rather than loading it from the PC-DVD (even after logging in with my steam account used to install the original) It instead would only install by a download from Steam -- WIRELESS G. Needless to say many many HOURS later it was ready......

Really??? Just want to say thanks for the one-time-use DVD, if i wanted to spend all day downloading I would have bought the digital copy. At least it gave me more time to play Oblivion and Fallout3 on the laptop I suppose.

My experiences with Steam controlled products are not very stellar, I vowed not to ever buy another game that had to be run thru Steam the last time I had problems with them, At least you could bypass Steam on Fallout3 once it was installed. I just un-installed Steam and Fallout3 worked fine ever after. Oh well, game on....

Many thanks, will give it a shot on the laptop. Just figured since it had to be activated thru Steam that it would be best to be logged into Steam before hand so it could verify the licensed install and continue from DVD. Just brings up another question tho, if I don't need Steam to install and play it on other computers, why freaking waste the time with Steam anyways. I could care less about achievements, so sick of seeing them in every game that comes out now it makes me puke. Play for the win and finishing the quests, not some lame "kill 20 wolves with a potato peeler award". Still love the game runs great, only a couple of crashes but as Layman on a diff thread said of the auto save...Dont trust em, do manual saves. I have ever since morrowind, have to or lose hours and hours of game play. Just the nature of the beast. Thanks again.

You can copy the files from your desktop to your notebook. When you launch Steam on the notebook it will authenticate and verify the files. I've done this for a few games that I put on my notebook rather than re-downloading. Another option is to use the built in backup, copy the backup files to the notebook and restore it.