Deleting the Mod Does Not Remove the Mod

[Rogdonlp]

PROBLEM: I downloaded Nexus Mod 3708 "main menu wallpaper replacer" which is supposed to provide different lore based screens during loading. The installation is to download the mod, extract, and place the four mod folders (Wallpapers, Meshes, SKSE, and Textures) into the Skyrim/Data folder. On restarting Skyrim, the new loading screen appeared. Upon selecting the saved game to load the screen went black then an animated Nord appeared who bent over and retched and then CTD. Two additional attempts to load had the same result except the Nord faced different directions. I deleted the four mod folders from Skyrim/Data. After rebooting, I restarted Skyrim and there was no change. The lore based screen was still there along with the retching Nord and the CTD. I then went into my recycle bin and looked at the four deleted mod folders. The SKSE folder contailed a .dll. The other three folders contained either meshes .nif or textures .dds. One of the subfolders did contain copies of my enblocal.ini and enbseries.ini files from my Skyrim/Data folder. I immediately ran my anti-virus program. Nothing was found. I then deleted all of the Skyrim files from Skyrim/Data and reloaded them from Steam. I also reloaded the other files in the Skyrim/Data folder with backup copies. After rebooting and restarting the lore based loading screen was still there with the retching Nord and the CTD. Any ideas on how to remove this 'virus' would be appreciated.

 

SETUP: Desktop computer. Intel 6600K, 32GB RAM, GTX 1080 graphics card. Skyrim is on the D: drive. Using Skyrim Legendary. Using latest version of Mod Organizer. Using the SRLE Extended: Legacy of the Dragonborn build by Darth_Mathias. I use LOOT, TES5EDIT, FNIS, Dual Sheath Redux, Wrye Bash, Merge Plugins, and ASIS.

 

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[snelss0]

I would suggest a clean install. https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/906390-cleaning-skyrim-for-fresh-install/

If you don't want to clean install, you can open up the .zip file of the mod and see all the files for Main menu wallpaper replacer and then individually hunt them down in the areas you installed them. If that is what you've done already, I'd clean install.

[Rogdonlp]

Some additional information:

Doing further exploration on my hard drive I discovered that the skyrim.ini and skyrimperfs.ini in the C: ... Games/Skyrim directory had been overwritten by the mod. Since I launch Skyrim from within Mod Organizer these changed .ini files have no impact on my game. However, this mod is clearly a virus since no mod would deliberately overwrite the two most important .ini files. As an experiment I deleted the Skyrim folder and all of its subfolders and files and reloaded a backup copy of Skyrim and all the sub folders and files. The problem went away. The game now works perfectly. So I have two choices: 1) I can continue to look for the file that is causing the problem or I start with my three week old backup file and redo all of the changes to mods , merges, etc. that I have made in the last three weeks. If you have any suggestions as to how to located the virus file please let me know .

 

Thank you.

[Rogdonlp]

Hello snelss0,

 

Thank you for your response. By reloading my back up (see post above) I have essentially done a clean install. As for finding the virus file, I went in and looked at all of the files that were saved to my D: drive around the time period when the mod was installed. All of the mod files were just the files I mentioned in my first post. So the virus writer must have made it very hard to find the offending file. I guess rebuilding my load order is the only safe way to go. I suppose this virus should be reported to someone. Any Idea who?

 

Again, thank you for your reply.