OK I an trying to get this Tale of Two Wastelands up and running but I have a problem.
My copy of Fallout 3 GOTY is retail and does not use Steam.
My copy of Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition is on Steam.
How or where can I get hold of a retail copy of New Vegas Ultimate ?
The games just need to be installed on your hard drive whether they are steam or retail. Then the TTW installer will build from there. So install FO3 using the CDs and then install FONV from steam onto your hard drive like you would normally do if you wanted to play FONV. Again, even with steam games, they get installed physically onto your hard drive. Once installed steam is only required for updates and or crap like achievements and not to actually play the games.
There are no disk copies of Fallout New Vegas that are not the steam one too (even if you get the ones that come in disks they are still the Steam version).
For years I had the same game copies as you (Fallout GOTY disk and Fallout New Vegas Ultimate from Steam), and never had any problems installing TTW 
.
The only requirements for TTW is that the games are the english version and "not cracked" in any way (for example, pirated).
Before you can use the GOTY disc version of Fallout 3 it needs to be patched to v1.7 (I think that's the last patch?).
I honestly don't know if it places the DLC in GFWL folders or not, if it does there is a guide on the fallout3 nexus to move the folders and files to the installation directory where they need to be.
You need to run the default launcher for each game at least once to set the registry keys. If not you can also set the installation directories manually in our installer.
[quote=RoyBatty]
I honestly don't know if it places the DLC in GFWL folders or not, if it does there is a guide on the fallout3 nexus to move the folders and files to the installation directory where they need to be.
[/quote]
They are. But IIRC FOMM would "move" them for you when launched.
[quote=RoyBatty]
Before you can use the GOTY disc version of Fallout 3 it needs to be patched to v1.7 (I think that's the last patch?).
[/quote]
The GOTY disks come with the 1.7 patch. To patch the game we only need to run and install the second disk, since the second disk is the one with the DLCs and TTW needs the DLCs I thought I wouldn't need to mention the v1.7 patch. 
Thanks all so far going to have a go at this later today.
If you also plan to use xEdit, or if you wish to place the games somewhere other than the programs directory, you really need to make the registry entries by hand in 64-bit Windows. You need the "official" entry, and one that xEdit understands. These are the entries I use for FO3 and FNV.
[quote]Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout3]
"Installed Path"="C:\\GAMES\\Bethesda Softworks\\Fallout 3\\"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout3]
"Installed Path"="C:\\GAMES\\Bethesda Softworks\\Fallout 3\\"
[/quote]
[quote]Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Bethesda Softworks\FalloutNV]
"Installed Path"="C:\\GAMES\\Bethesda Softworks\\Fallout New Vegas\\"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bethesda Softworks\FalloutNV]
"Installed Path"="C:\\GAMES\\Bethesda Softworks\\Fallout New Vegas\\"
[/quote]
Just cut-n-paste that into files with a .reg extension and run them to make the registry entries. Of course, you'd make the paths wherever they are on your machine. I just keep a GAMES directory on my C drive for all games. had to look at the source code for xEdit to figure out why FO3/NV/Skyrim never worked in Windows 7 Pro x64 - it looks for a registry entry that doesn't exist in 64-bit Windows.
Thanks for all that :)
@jlf65 You must have something weird going on with your system because you should NEVER have to add those entries by hand.
I always install my games outside of any Windows UAC folders like "Program Files" and xEdit has never missed any game installed, including FO3 & FNV.
The "HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node" entries are pseudo entries and your Windows OS should parse them correctly regardless of the location of the game. Basically if your machine is 64bit it looks there first and if they aren't found it then checks the other registry key.
