Geofferic

That was done. Unless I have a bad install, the errors are as I described. Oh my, big man can make fun of people with a moderator tag. Really impressed, especially since homeslice was wrong.

Hmpf. I went through every line of BethINI's SkyrimPrefs.ini and ... nothing is the problem. I copied/pasted the BethINI's SkyrimPrefs.ini to a new file, it worked fine. Run BethINI again, fix the Skyrim.INI, then once again you get the launcher wanting to reset the prefs. Okay, delete INIs. Run launcher for new INIs. Run BethINI. Correct the Skyrim.ini. Rename the BethINI SkyrimPrefs.ini to something else, then copy/paste the content into a new SkyrimPrefs.ini - works perfectly fine. No. Clue.

I found the problem. It's with the Skyrim.ini. BethINI isn't apparently aware that it's SE, so it's changing this section: sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices_en0.bsa, Skyrim - Textures0.bsa, Skyrim - Textures1.bsa, Skyrim - Textures2.bsa, Skyrim - Textures3.bsa, Skyrim - Textures4.bsa, Skyrim - Textures5.bsa, Skyrim - Textures6.bsa, Skyrim - Textures7.bsa, Skyrim - Textures8.bsa, Skyrim - Patch.bsa sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes0.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes1.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa to this: sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - VoicesExtra.bsa Revert to the first list and voila. EDIT: I should say that this is what's causing the CTD. Now hunting for the error in SkyrimPrefs.ini that causes the launcher to re-setup every time.

https://wiki.step-project.com/Project:Skyrim_Special_Edition I assume that whoever made the page did so knowing that BethINI would work with SSE, seeing as the page is about things verified to work with SSE. As for the BethINI pointing to the correct profile, it is.

So, I'm new to STEP and I'm having trouble at one of the first STEPs. LOL I install a clean version of SSE. When I run BethINI, I use the STEP guide's suggestions (here: https://wiki.step-project.com/BethINI#Recommendations ) (not all of which are possible, as they aren't all actually options in BethINI 2.6! EG, the Preset section lists step 4 as "Ensure the [Enable File Selection] box is checked." There is no such box. There are other missing options, as well). I save/exit. Launching the game via Steam or MO2 causes a CTD. Via Steam and it tries to set my INIs up again, and offers some crazy resolutions. So, delete the INIs in the My Games folder. Run the game from inside Steam, it recreates appropriate INIs. I can actually run the game again. Go back and try BethINI again, same steps. Same results. Now, I have also tried BethINI with regular old Skyrim (Oldrim?), and it works like a charm. What gives? EDIT: RE the resolution, which may be the ultimate problem. So my native resolution is 1600x900, which works fine in full screen. I just tried setting windowed/borderless (my preferred way to play) in the launcher without BethINI and the maximum resolution it's allowing is 1440 x 810. The BethINI is setting it to 1600 x 900 (which makes sense to me). EDIT 2: If I let the launcher set the resolution to 1440 x 810 for windowed/borderless, and then manually edit the INI so that it is 1600 x 900, it works fine. So I don't think that's problem. EDIT 3: If I start with fresh INIs, then open BethINI (make sure that it does not set the files to read only) and simply click Save and Exit, IE, change nothing, the game will not launch as if BethINI had made changes. I'm assuming that it is making some changes even when none are selected. Hmm!