Questions about using Purge mods and reinstalling SSE

[capella6707]

It's been a couple of weeks since I've played SSE - let alone keep the 270+ mods I've been playing with updated. I've been kind of putting off playing partially because Steam decided to show SSE as NOT installed - the Library page for SSE in Steam says "Install", not "Play". Although the last time I played the game it was like that and the game ran fine. It's just that the game somehow got "disconnected" from Steam.

 

Anyway, so today, with the intention of checking what mods need to be updated and then playing for a while, I fire up Vortex and start downloading and updating mods. It wasn't until about the third SKSE-based mod that I realized that SKSE updated. And while looking into that, I found that SSE itself was updated as well. Well crap... Now I need to update SSE since I've installed mods that are for the latest version of SSE and SKSE.

 

So I need to figure out a plan to update SSE without wiping and reinstalling everything. I believe that's where Vortex's Purge Mods will come into play if I understand it correctly (I've never used that feature before).

 

I'm thinking my plan of attack needs to be:

1. In Vortex, purge the mods, which brings SSE back to a vanilla state, correct?
   1. That will still leave non-Vortex, manually-installed mods, correct?
2. Copy the remaining contents of the entire Steam SSE folder to a safe location
3. (re)Install SSE via Steam, which will install the latest version
4. Overwrite that with the backup that I did in step 2
5. In Vortex "unpurge" the mods
6. I should be good to go, then, right?

A couple of questions:

1. To purge the mods, do I need to select all of them first, or does clicking the Purge mods button automatically purge all currently installed mods?
2. To restore the mods that have been purged, do I click the Deploy button next to it, or does the Purge mods button toggle to say "Restore mods" when the button's been clicked?

Does this look to you guys like a sound plan to restore Skyrim to a playable state with minimal work?

 

Are there any additional steps I may want to take to ensure everything is restored correctly?

[Tannin42]

Purge always purges everything and yes, you just deploy to "revert" the purge.

 

I don't see why this needs to be so complicated, just let Steam update SSE, update skse (and all mods with skse plugins) and play.

[capella6707]

Purge always purges everything and yes, you just deploy to "revert" the purge.

 

I don't see why this needs to be so complicated, just let Steam update SSE, update skse (and all mods with skse plugins) and play.

In this particular case, it's not just an "update", per se. Steam thinks SSE isn't installed at all, so instead of the button on the SSE page in my Steam Library saying "Play", it says "Install". It started showing up that way about a month ago - no idea why - nothing about my games changed between when the button said "Play" and when it started saying "Install". Perhaps a Steam update broke the connection.

 

That's why I'm wary about what will happen when I hit the Install button in Steam.