Prepare for the Skyrim 10th Anniversary Edition

[Greg]

I think by "help" you mean updates files when the user least expects it? I'd still recommend backing up the files to a safe location that Steam can't access just in case Steam tries to be "helpful."

[z929669]

34 minutes ago, Greg said:

I think by "help" you mean updates files when the user least expects it? I'd still recommend backing up the files to a safe location that Steam can't access just in case Steam tries to be "helpful."

Indeed, you catch my drift

[TechAngel85]

I see my game updated, as the CC files are showing up in MO.

[MisterMorden]

1 hour ago, TechAngel85 said:

I see my game updated, as the CC files are showing up in MO.

Out of curiosity, Tech, did you take any steps to avoid the update and they didn't work or just let it happen?

[D1Z4STR]

You can always use both! Skyrim Lite Loader

[TechAngel85]

1 hour ago, tnicko said:

Out of curiosity, Tech, did you take any steps to avoid the update and they didn't work or just let it happen?

I just let it happen. I have mods to take care of so I wanted to see the new files.

[MisterMorden]

26 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

I just let it happen. I have mods to take care of so I wanted to see the new files.

ok *whew* lol, I imagined for a sec it just happened anyway!

 

1 hour ago, D1Z4STR said:

You can always use both! Skyrim Lite Loader

Thank you for the link!  Will look into it!

[Mousetick]

8 hours ago, z929669 said:

Sounds like a potentially good solution that could be handy even for those of us with a backup.

Yes it's less cumbersome than restoring from a backup, and having both versions side by side allows you to run Skyrim AE if you want. I didn't invent this trick, it's relatively well known and has been in use for quite some time.

8 hours ago, z929669 said:

I really have little idea of how Steam is configured under the hood to 'help' users stay up to date, since they removed the option to NOT update.

The Steam client uses metadata it stores locally on your PC to keep track of which version is has installed. For example, the metadata for Skyrim SE/AE is in Steam/steamapps/appmanifest_489830.acf. You can look at it with a text editor. If the metadata is up to date, Steam thinks your installation is up to date, even if the game files are actually several years old. When the publisher (e.g. Bethesda) updates the game on the platform, the client simply compares the metadata on the platform with that on your PC to determine if it needs to update your game installation.

The only way for the Steam client to realize that the metadata and game files are out-of-sync is if you manually 'verify integrity of game files'.

We still need to prevent Steam from automatically updating our Skyrim SE installation by keeping 'Only update this game when I launch it', in the (likely) event that Bethesda publishes an update to Skyrim AE in the future. When that happens, all that's needed is to repeat the steps I gave previously, with an additional step before step #2, to avoid re-downloading Skyrim AE from scratch:

1.5. Rename the 'Skyrim Anniversary Edition' folder to 'Skyrim Special Edition'.

[z929669]

1 hour ago, Mousetick said:

Yes it's less cumbersome than restoring from a backup, and having both versions side by side allows you to run Skyrim AE if you want. I didn't invent this trick, it's relatively well known and has been in use for quite some time.

The Steam client uses metadata it stores locally on your PC to keep track of which version is has installed. For example, the metadata for Skyrim SE/AE is in Steam/steamapps/appmanifest_489830.acf. You can look at it with a text editor. If the metadata is up to date, Steam thinks your installation is up to date, even if the game files are actually several years old. When the publisher (e.g. Bethesda) updates the game on the platform, the client simply compares the metadata on the platform with that on your PC to determine if it needs to update your game installation.

The only way for the Steam client to realize that the metadata and game files are out-of-sync is if you manually 'verify integrity of game files'.

We still need to prevent Steam from automatically updating our Skyrim SE installation by keeping 'Only update this game when I launch it', in the (likely) event that Bethesda publishes an update to Skyrim AE in the future. When that happens, all that's needed is to repeat the steps I gave previously, with an additional step before step #2, to avoid re-downloading Skyrim AE from scratch:

1.5. Rename the 'Skyrim Anniversary Edition' folder to 'Skyrim Special Edition'.

Well explained. Thank you for that.

[DoubleYou]

It would seem the wisest approach was the complete backup. List of file changes implemented in the Free 10th Anniversary edition update has been listed here:

https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/SkyrimSE:Game_Files#Free_10th_Aniversary_Update

It seems that Bethesda repacked all the BSAs to help distribute some of the new assets. In so doing they removed Skyrim - Patch.bsa. However, they did NOT update the default sResourceArchiveList2 setting to remove mention of the file, so the game is going to search for this BSA and not find it every time. I doubt this will cause issues; however, a mod author could potentially exploit this as a means to load a bsa without a corresponding plugin, the caveat being that Bethesda may later find the need to add more files and re-add the Skyrim - Patch.bsa.

Skyrim.ini changes:

[Bethesda.net]
sEnvironment=AUTO

1.5.97.0 had the value as "Auto" instead of all caps now "AUTO". I doubt it actually makes a difference.

[Language]
sGamepadDisconnectedMessage=Please connect a controller to continue.
sGamepadDisconnectedTitle=Controller disconnected.

These two settings were removed. It is possible that these strings are no longer used.

[OAuth]
sGameCode=

This setting was added, but defaults to blank. I would guess it is somehow related to the Bethesda.net platform and likely does very little.

SkyrimPrefs.ini change:

[General]
bFreebiesSeen=0

The only change is the addition of this setting. Since it defaults to disabled, it is unclear what this might do, as it seems to not be in the official game settings either. I turned it on and noticed no apparent change. 

From this, it can be seen that the binary update leads to very little changes on the configuration settings front. I now will download the anniversary content and see what files it adds and add them to the list so we know what files we need to investigate.

[DoubleYou]

Added list of files added when the user has downloaded the paid Anniversary Edition Creation Club Content:

https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/SkyrimSE:Game_Files#Paid_Anniversary_Edition_Creation_Club_Content

[Ogham]

Hello all, any reservations to the following from the community. I have tested for a clean install after downloading the AE version and it all worked well.

Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Downgrade Patcher

How to Downgrade Skyrim SE to Fix SKSE64 & Mods (2021) - Skyrim AE Update 1.6

 

[z929669]

32 minutes ago, Ogham said:

Hello all, any reservations to the following from the community. I have tested for a clean install after downloading the AE version and it all worked well.

Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Downgrade Patcher

How to Downgrade Skyrim SE to Fix SKSE64 & Mods (2021) - Skyrim AE Update 1.6

 

We are not necessarily recommending the 'downgrade' approach, we are not warning against it either (as some are in other communities). Our approach has always been to preserve the SSE data in Steam and to maintain an instance for both SSE and SAE, which needs to be done either way in order to retain SSE 1.5.97

[GSDFan]

Forgive me as I haven’t played Skyrim SE in a while, and I have not tested the following fully (followed the guide) and I only use portable instances of MO2.

User Mousetick  idea of renaming the SE directory can be used to our advantage.

Start MO2 and it will not see the game. You will have a chance to browse to the new location "C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition Hands Off". After you do this MO2 will start up without any error/

Now none of the executables will work because they point to the old location. All we must now do is to point them to the new location:

Title - SKSE

Binary - C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition Hands Off\skse64_loader.exe

Start is - C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition Hands Off

Do the same for both the game executables, Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim Special Edition Launcher and any other ecexutables.

The one exception is the MO2 Explore Virtual Folder executable the argument line must be changed to reflect the new path to the DATD folder. This will also have to have encased in quotation marks, "C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition Hands Off\data".

 

The only problem I see is if you never installed the game before, there might problems with the path in windows. I will test a new install of MO2 and Steam on another computer and report back.

 

[Mousetick]

2 hours ago, GSDFan said:

User Mousetick  idea of renaming the SE directory can be used to our advantage.

It works fine but as you've noticed it requires some manual (re)configuration. It's very much doable however and it has the advantages that 1) the modded installation in its own separate folder cannot be messed up by Bethesda or Steam, no matter how many updates they push and 2) you can simultaneously have a standard installation managed, tracked and updated by Steam, such as Skyrim AE in Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition.

The SkyrimSE.exe, SkyrimSELauncher.exe programs and all tools such as MO2, BethINI, LOOT, SEEdit etc. rely on a Windows registry key to automatically determine where the game is installed: 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Bethesda Softworks\Skyrim Special Edition\installed path'.

If you rename/move the game installation folder, it can't be found anymore since the Windows registry key points to the old (standard) installation folder (i.e. .....\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition).

There are two options to solve this:

• Either modify the registry key with the new path, but then it will break the standard Steam installation of Skyrim AE that you may want to have at the same time.
• Or manually (re)configure all the modding tools to point to the separate modded installation location.

If you create a new MO2 instance pointing to the separate modded installation folder, you shouldn't need to fix the paths that it sets up automatically (Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim Special Edition Launcher, SKSE, CK, Virtual Folder Explorer).

BethINI, LOOT, SEEdit, xLODGen, TexGen, and DynDOLOD need to be manually configured. See the following screenshots for pointers. NOTE: my custom installation folder is 'C:\Game\Skyrim SE', while my standard Steam installation folder is 'C:\Game\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition'.

I think Nemesis finds the Data folder automatically relative to where it's run from (i.e. its mod folder), so doesn't need further configuration - to be confirmed.

I've been using the above setup for a few days and it's working fine so far. YMMV.