Am I able to keep a vanilla backup or install to second location?

[DerSquirrel]

I had XP32 Skeleton and Dual Sheath Redux both on and working dandy, then tried to install Feminine Running / New Dash Animation and wasn't sure what I could and could not overwrite and something broke in the process. I had one weapon on my back and the other at my feet. Dual Sheath Redux said this meant something went wrong with my skeletons. No matter what I tried to reinstall and overwrite I just couldn't get Dual Sheath Redux working again, even using the patch .jar every time I tried something out.

 

So I scorched the earth and uninstalled every mod and manually deleted any trace of them and reinstalled the entire game. My question (I promise there's a point to all this) is that if I have to do this again, is there a way I can keep an untouched, unmodded complete Skyrim installation somewhere else on my computer so I don't have to do a two hour reinstall and just switch out the broken version with the clean one?

 

Or if I just have to keep a backup of vanilla folders/files, which are the ones I should keep?

[Shadeybladey]

If you have a pure, pristine Vanilla install of Skyrim after completely purging and re-downloading and fresh installing the game (plus any DLC, Hi Res Texture packs etc), you can zip the Skyrim folder up and keep it somewhere safe for future use.

 

This might not work very well for Steam Workshop mods, but I never get mods from there any more.

 

I have Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. Windows 8 and 8.1 may differ slightly, I really don't know.

 

 

The game is in: C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\skyrim

 

(The default installation place may be in Program Files or Program Files (x86), but installing Steam in a separate Games folder helps with problems with UAC etc. Also, set all your desktop short cuts to run in compatibility mode as Administrator. I just recently moved my Steam folder to C:\Games, and everything associated with Steam, Skyrim, TES5Edit, Wrye BASH etc all updated for the new location - including my desktop short cuts. I did not have to edit any ini or cfg files).

 

 

DLCList, LoadOrder.txt and PlugIns.txt are in: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Skyrim

 

BUT this is a different Skyrim folder, so do not confuse them. The game will re-write these files as soon as you run the Vanilla launcher anyway.

 

 

Saves and ini files are in: C:\Users\UserName\Documents\My Games\Skyrim

 

 

This is yet another Skyrim folder, but I have heavily tweaked ini files, so I always keep a separate back up as the Vanilla launcher may well re-detect your graphics settings and overwrite them.

 

You do not need to back up your saves as you are unlikely to delete those and, with a new install, probably won't have any anyway! :smile:

 

 

So, when you purge the game and delete everything in: C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\skyrim,

 

you can unzip this Skyrim folder from your zip/rar whatever and replace it.

Then you will have to launch Steam on-line, launch Skyrim and verify integrity etc. With any luck, Steam will not try to download everything again.

That is why it is best to keep a pristine Vanilla back up and keep copies of Master files cleaned with TES5Edit somewhere safe; otherwise Steam may try to download them again (it is a bit temperamental at the best of times).

 

Then you can re-install all the mods you want, either manually or with a Mod Manager, run BOSS, BASH Patch, SkyProccer Patch, whatever you use, and you are off.

I also keep all the mod zips, rars etc I download in their own folders in my Skyrim Mods folder and when I install them I unzip them where they are copy them over (rather than move them), so I always have them as a back up as well. I always install manually.

 

 

Cheers!

 

~.~

[bben46]

While Beth does not allow a second installation, you can make backup copies of things like your data folder, saves folder and ini files.

I recommend playing all the way through the intro with NO mods at all - until you exit the cave - then make a permanent save - back this one up along with your vanilla data folder, saves folder & Virgin ini files. Then, whenever you reach some plateau in game - or are going to add a set of new mods make another separate save of the same things every time. I put these in a special Skyrim Backup folder outside of the Skyrim game folders - and make a new subfolder for each save. - My Skyrim game is in E:\Games\Steam ... my backups are in E:\Games\Game backups\Skyrim. I can delete the entire Skyrim folder from my steam folder and the backups will still be there.

[Fistandilius]

This might not work very well for Steam Workshop mods, but I never get mods from there any more.

 

 

In my experience Steam mods are safer than Nexus or anywhere else. I've never gotten a steam mod that wasn't in a .bsa file or an .esp/.esm that I couldn't easily delete and go back to what I had before. Granted save files will always be changed every time you install or uninstall a mod and save, but that's unavoidable with pretty much any mod except texture replacers.

[Shadeybladey]

Doesn't matter what you do with Workshop mods, if you don't unsubscribe they will download again, activate automatically, Steam will rewrite your inis, change your graphics settings and load the mods, with absolutely no regard to compatibility or load order. It will update mods to the next version without permission, sometimes breaking your game when dependencies or required masters have become too large to upload to Steam and so cannot be updated at the same time.

 

Nexus mods will not do that. They sit in their folder and do absolutely nothing at all until *I* decide what to do with them.

I am the user, I decide what my tools like computers will do, not the tool itself. Any other behavior is a virus as far as I am concerned.

 

Maybe that just shows my age, but when I walk past the garden shed, I don't expect the door to fly open and a pair of shears to fly out and rush over to start cutting the hedge on the off-chance that is what I actually wanted. And I don't expect mods to download automatically after I uninstall them and I don't expect to have to use a system that insists on that. So I won't and I don't. This all started happening with Windows 95, and it hasn't much improved. :wallbash:

 

Dea...

 

"IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE TRYING TO WRITE A LETTER! WOULD YOU LIKE SOME HELP?"

 

A talking paper clip?!? :facepalm: Why won't it go away?

Where's the (expletive that would get me banned) OFF! button?

 

 

I hate all that stuff. Before we had Windows 95, we had schools. And before I had Steam for Skyrim, I had places like the Nexus for Morrowind.

 

You can do whatever you like. I prefer manual installs because it means I have to have some idea what I am doing, only what I want to do gets done and if I screw it up it's Nobody's Fault But Mine.

 

 

~.~

[Fistandilius]

Doesn't matter what you do with Workshop mods, if you don't unsubscribe they will download again, activate automatically, Steam will rewrite your inis, change your graphics settings and load the mods, with absolutely no regard to compatibility or load order. It will update mods to the next version without permission, sometimes breaking your game when dependencies or required masters have become too large to upload to Steam and so cannot be updated at the same time.

 

Nexus mods will not do that. They sit in their folder and do absolutely nothing at all until *I* decide what to do with them.

I am the user, I decide what my tools like computers will do, not the tool itself. Any other behavior is a virus as far as I am concerned.

 

Maybe that just shows my age, but when I walk past the garden shed, I don't expect the door to fly open and a pair of shears to fly out and rush over to start cutting the hedge on the off-chance that is what I actually wanted. And I don't expect mods to download automatically after I uninstall them and I don't expect to have to use a system that insists on that. So I won't and I don't. This all started happening with Windows 95, and it hasn't much improved. :wallbash:

 

Dea...

 

"IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE TRYING TO WRITE A LETTER! WOULD YOU LIKE SOME HELP?"

 

A talking paper clip?!? :facepalm: Why won't it go away?

Where's the (expletive that would get me banned) OFF! button?

 

 

I hate all that stuff. Before we had Windows 95, we had schools. And before I had Steam for Skyrim, I had places like the Nexus for Morrowind.

 

You can do whatever you like. I prefer manual installs because it means I have to have some idea what I am doing, only what I want to do gets done and if I screw it up it's Nobody's Fault But Mine.

 

 

~.~

 

I can respect where you're coming from. I don't even use boss or nmm. But from what I recall reading, running Skyrim in offline mode eliminates the auto updating of steam. As far as automatically installing your subscribed items... Skyrim installs ANYTHING new in the data directory automatically. I can tell you this from experience because all my mods are installed manually as I don't use NMM and rarely use Steam items. If I unzip a file into the data directory, Skyrim will find it when I launch and it adds it to the data list, checked as ready to run. I have to manually go into data and uncheck it or it will run right away, even if I just put the mod in there to play with it later.

And as you said, if you unsubscribe from an item it won't auto update, so the tools are there for you.

 

All in all, like I said, I get where you're coming from, but I still find steam mods to be safer than items found on the nexus that overwrite things on your hard drive, add scripts that you can't find to remove, etc.

 

Someone tried to argue with me in another thread that there was nothing wrong with SKSE, and I was a fool for speaking out against it. Well disregarding the fact that he was off topic, I never said anything against SKSE, all I said was that I won't use it. SKSE might run perfectly fine, but there are tons of mods out there that use it and introduce game instabilities that are far less likely to occur by using the basic scripts available. So I guess my point is, it's not just the tools you use, it's how you use them.

 

The only thing that really bugs me about Steam is when you verify cache it overwrites your ini file.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Fistandilius

[ripple]

You can also use the Mod Organizer to manage your mod un/installation. MO will not install mod contents directly into the data folder, but will instead install them into their own isolated folders then 'reassemble' the mods into a virtual game data folder when you launch the game through MO. This ensures your Skyrim game installation will always be 'vanilla' no matter how many mods you install.

[Shadeybladey]

 

But from what I recall reading, running Skyrim in offline mode eliminates the auto updating of steam. As far as automatically installing your subscribed items... Skyrim installs ANYTHING new in the data directory automatically.

 

 

Blah blah blah, yes, we know all that.

 

Except that disabling automatic updates only worked for that single session, and you had to be on-line to set it and by then it was too late.

 

Before they enabled running Steam in off-line mode, I had to use a script someone posted on the SPUF forums to stop Steam automatically launching and trying to go on-line every time I booted the machine!

 

I only bought this new PC to play Skyrim (well, not only, but I'd had the DVD since November, 2011, and not been able to play it yet). My well over ten year old heap of junk was quite literally in pieces - mother board on the desk with a desk fan blowing on it to keep it cool etc - fine for Baldur's Gate, Morrowind and Office 2000, but it really needed replacing. I even took Assassin's Creed back to the shop as it required internet connection to even play. I absolutely just will not have that. I will not BE dictated to like that. I have the DVD. Why not give me a 36 character, 24 bit encrypted activation key? I have never cracked or hacked or stolen software in my life.

 

I started Skyrim in March, 2012, with patch 1.4 or 1.5 and took enormous pains to stop this virus accessing my hard drive without permission, downloading code that would change and damage my game and changing system settings I had decided on and fixed.

 

So, new patch 1.6 broke you game? 1.7 broke your game and downloaded silly, broken horse combat and stuff for DLC not released yet? 1.8 downloading more stuff for DLC that has not even been released yet and breaking your map settings? 1.9 downloading more stuff and breaking lip synch yet again? And all of it costing you money from your download allowance?

 

Not for me! Not until SKSE was updated and mod authors had a chance to update their mods. At least SKSE would not let you run the game if the versions did not match, and the author of that usually updated it within 36 hours. My first character lasted 460 hours and got to level 64 and survived all those horrors by not letting them happen until I'd got a lot of feedback from other people via the SPUF forum and had some idea about which of my mods might get trashed. Although I only had about 30 mods in those days.

 

Now I have all the DLC via the Legendary DVD, 179 esp mods and 19 non-esp mods (swf, dll, texture replacers etc). Some of the esp mods have no bsa and no loose files, some have bsa and some have just loose files. My mods have loose files in their own folders, but everything is named in a way that makes manual uninstallation very simple and nothing overwrites or replaces anything in Vanilla, unless it's in the esp. Out of those 179, several require SKSE, but only about two dozen have MCM support.

 

 

Finally, they implemented the control that Steam does NOT launch at all until I click on the icon to launch it. Then they implemented the choice to run it in on-line or off-line mod. Why on Earth would anyone want to play a single-player, non-co-op game on-line? If they've got that kind of money to burn, don't pour it down the drain, send it to me! :D

 

And yet it still from time to time logs me out of Steam, forcing me to log in and update, and cancels all my friends group subscriptions etc etc. And then it constantly says that to update it needs to be on-line, even though it is, and sometimes took 12 to 18 hours to do the simplest update.

 

Sometimes, I am off-line from Steam for months at a time, but other times it just seems to cancel all that and forces me to go on-line again. I signed in today and it thought I was accessing from a new machine, but I think that was because I have a mobile dongle and it gets confused by the server the mobile signal is routing through.

 

None of these headaches with The Nexus. I installed Steam, created an account, logged-in, installed the game, logged-out and that is the end of my relationship with Steam as far as I am concerned. If a Steam account was not required to play Skyrim, I would not have one at all. Skyrim is the only Steam game I have.

 

Mods I get from here. If they are not here, I go to TES Alliance, AFK or Dark Creations etc. If they are only on Steam Workshop, I don't use them at all. The Unofficial Patches do not automatically force themselves onto my hard drive, I have to download them and install them myself. Mods do not uninstall themselves and trash my much loved first character because the author has removed them from Steam. If a new version of a mod is buggy, I just stick with the old version. All that subscribe, download, put it in a zip, unsubscribe and re-install manually - what a faff when you can just get it elsewhere and cut out the middle man.

 

I have the control. Like I did with Win 3.11, DOS 6.22 and games on three 3.5" floppies back in '92.

 

~.~

[HeyYou]

 

 

But from what I recall reading, running Skyrim in offline mode eliminates the auto updating of steam. As far as automatically installing your subscribed items... Skyrim installs ANYTHING new in the data directory automatically.

 

 

Blah blah blah, yes, we know all that.

 

Except that disabling automatic updates only worked for that single session, and you had to be on-line to set it and by then it was too late.

 

Before they enabled running Steam in off-line mode, I had to use a script someone posted on the SPUF forums to stop Steam automatically launching and trying to go on-line every time I booted the machine!

 

I only bought this new PC to play Skyrim (well, not only, but I'd had the DVD since November, 2011, and not been able to play it yet). My well over ten year old heap of junk was quite literally in pieces - mother board on the desk with a desk fan blowing on it to keep it cool etc - fine for Baldur's Gate, Morrowind and Office 2000, but it really needed replacing. I even took Assassin's Creed back to the shop as it required internet connection to even play. I absolutely just will not have that. I will not BE dictated to like that. I have the DVD. Why not give me a 36 character, 24 bit encrypted activation key? I have never cracked or hacked or stolen software in my life.

 

I started Skyrim in March, 2012, with patch 1.4 or 1.5 and took enormous pains to stop this virus accessing my hard drive without permission, downloading code that would change and damage my game and changing system settings I had decided on and fixed.

 

So, new patch 1.6 broke you game? 1.7 broke your game and downloaded silly, broken horse combat and stuff for DLC not released yet? 1.8 downloading more stuff for DLC that has not even been released yet and breaking your map settings? 1.9 downloading more stuff and breaking lip synch yet again? And all of it costing you money from your download allowance?

 

Not for me! Not until SKSE was updated and mod authors had a chance to update their mods. At least SKSE would not let you run the game if the versions did not match, and the author of that usually updated it within 36 hours. My first character lasted 460 hours and got to level 64 and survived all those horrors by not letting them happen until I'd got a lot of feedback from other people via the SPUF forum and had some idea about which of my mods might get trashed. Although I only had about 30 mods in those days.

 

Now I have all the DLC via the Legendary DVD, 179 esp mods and 19 non-esp mods (swf, dll, texture replacers etc). Some of the esp mods have no bsa and no loose files, some have bsa and some have just loose files. My mods have loose files in their own folders, but everything is named in a way that makes manual uninstallation very simple and nothing overwrites or replaces anything in Vanilla, unless it's in the esp. Out of those 179, several require SKSE, but only about two dozen have MCM support.

 

 

Finally, they implemented the control that Steam does NOT launch at all until I click on the icon to launch it. Then they implemented the choice to run it in on-line or off-line mod. Why on Earth would anyone want to play a single-player, non-co-op game on-line? If they've got that kind of money to burn, don't pour it down the drain, send it to me! :D

 

And yet it still from time to time logs me out of Steam, forcing me to log in and update, and cancels all my friends group subscriptions etc etc. And then it constantly says that to update it needs to be on-line, even though it is, and sometimes took 12 to 18 hours to do the simplest update.

 

Sometimes, I am off-line from Steam for months at a time, but other times it just seems to cancel all that and forces me to go on-line again. I signed in today and it thought I was accessing from a new machine, but I think that was because I have a mobile dongle and it gets confused by the server the mobile signal is routing through.

 

None of these headaches with The Nexus. I installed Steam, created an account, logged-in, installed the game, logged-out and that is the end of my relationship with Steam as far as I am concerned. If a Steam account was not required to play Skyrim, I would not have one at all. Skyrim is the only Steam game I have.

 

Mods I get from here. If they are not here, I go to TES Alliance, AFK or Dark Creations etc. If they are only on Steam Workshop, I don't use them at all. The Unofficial Patches do not automatically force themselves onto my hard drive, I have to download them and install them myself. Mods do not uninstall themselves and trash my much loved first character because the author has removed them from Steam. If a new version of a mod is buggy, I just stick with the old version. All that subscribe, download, put it in a zip, unsubscribe and re-install manually - what a faff when you can just get it elsewhere and cut out the middle man.

 

I have the control. Like I did with Win 3.11, DOS 6.22 and games on three 3.5" floppies back in '92.

 

~.~

 

Yeah, whatever happened to the good old days, when you put in the disk, installed the game, and PLAYED. I hate steam with a passion. But, it seems publishers don't particularly care about that...

[Shadeybladey]

 

Yeah, whatever happened to the good old days, when you put in the disk, installed the game, and PLAYED. I hate steam with a passion. But, it seems publishers don't particularly care about that...

 

LOL! Yeah, I may be a bit of a Luddite, but *I* decide what my PC does. I even customise Windows 7 to look as much like Windows 98 as possible as I find the colour scheme and everything else much more relaxed and familiar.

 

I think if I used someone else's Windows 7 machine, I probably would not be able to find anything.

 

And don't even get me started on predictive texting! :verymad:

 

~.~