Skyrim Unplugged (by stoppingby4now)

[stoppingby4now]

Skyrim Unplugged has been released on The Nexus and is available at the Skyrim Unplugged project page.Further information is available on the Description view. In short, Skyrim Unplugged allows you to enforce the Automatic Updates setting in Steam, allowing you to choose when you want to update Skyrim.

[frihyland]

yep it doesn't find install location, I'll pm you some registry settings that might prove useful

 

also it doesn't remember the path if I enter it manually.

[stoppingby4now]

I got the PM. That is the uninstall information. Do you not have a key under HKLM\\Software\\Bethesda Softworks\\Skyrim? If your registry has the uninstall info, it has to have the install info somewhere. May be a Win8 thing where it stores software installation information in a different location.

 

At this moment it does not remember settings. I will have to work on that for the next release. I Need to learn how to manage config files.

[frihyland]

that key is the only one in my registry that has the path to tesv.exe, I have no entries anywhere for bethesda except in cache, the creation kit makes a few hundred reg entries all over the place though.

you might take a look at wrye bash installation code, it has no problems finding skyrim on any machine.

 

you don't need a config file, use the registry lol.

 

yep there is a detectGames function defined in bush.py line 39

[Faitmaker]

Anyone running a 32-bit version of Windows that would be willing to help me do testing? Currently having issues with differences between 32 and 64 bit OS'es that I'm trying to work out when reading the registry for the Skyrim path.

 

 

Always willing to help... As I noted in the Nexus forum, Windows 7 32-bit....

[stoppingby4now]

I checked the code and it is attempting to find supported games via the registry, but it is checking only in the installation section where there should be an entry. If there is no entry in that location, it won't find the installation path that way. Looking through that function, they also use two other methods for determining the current game and getting the installation path from it. As a test, I removed my Bethesda Softworks key and ran WB in debug mode, and it did not find Skyrim in the registry, and instead got it based on it's current directory with a check to see what game is along side it.

 

If you look in HKLM\Software, do you see other application installation information? It doesn't make sense why that key doesn't exist on your system. Every game I have installed via Steam has an entry in the right place. In fact, running Skyrim after having deleted the key, it gets recreated. Completely bizarre.

[frihyland]

I don't have too much installed as its a new install of windows 8, but Mass Effect 1,2,3 shows up there as it should. I'm guessing its a steam thing, speaking of which steam is there under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Valve\Steam so with that you'll know where skyrim is.

[stoppingby4now]

Good call, I'll add that check in.

[stoppingby4now]

Version 1.3 is now up with improvements to locating Skyrim thanks to frihyland, and storing of the path should you enter it manually or via the Folder Browser Dialog. Removed strict checking for files so that it only checks for the existence of TESV.exe. If any of the files marked for permissions changes are missing, it ignores it and moves on. Also changed the Deny Write ACL to Deny WriteData so that the files can not be overwritten, but file attributes can be changed. For Wrye Bash users, you will no longer get exceptions when it tries to change timestamps.

[blacksol]

It may be worth adding to the troubleshooting guide how to enable updates with skyrim unplugged after local files are deleted.

 

I forgot to do this before verifying local files and couldn't work out why steam didn't replace the missing files (strings file removed by uninstalling better sorting in my case). Then why it wouldn't install after deleting local files!

 

Then when tried to enable via skyrim unplugged it had unhandled exceptions. replaced TESV.exe but it also wanted the Interface folder and Strings folder which I had backed up before uninstalling, not sure if it wanted any particular files in those folders.

 

Oh and then it wouldn't reinstall from DVD and started downloading skyrim, because I hadn't deleted TESV.exe. Once I deleted that it would install from DVD.

 

Took me a while to work this out!

[stoppingby4now]

If it was requiring files in the Interface and Strings folder, you need to get the latest 1.3 version which only requires the TESV.exe file to exist. The latest version enumerates the Interface and Strings folders and modifies permissions on files that match a pattern, but does not require them. This does need to be updated for troubleshooting, and now that I think of it I should update the main Nexus page as well.

[stoppingby4now]

The reports of problems hasn't been huge, but enough that I have updated Skyrim Unplugged to not require TESV.exe to exist when enabling Automatic Updates. This will allow it to continue on and undo the registry permissions without having to muck with creating a temporary TESV.exe file, etc. It still requires TESV.exe to exist in order to disable though.

 

Will be uploaded later today.

[z929669]

Kudos. This was a problem for me as well (just never reported). Actually, doesn't it require more than just TESV.exe though?

 

Whenever I would clear out my Data directory of all folders accept the big BSAs to establish a clean Skyrim install by reacquireing the small stuff, I would always forget to re-enable updates prior to deletion. Then when I waited for update, I realize that I need to enable updates again with Unplugged... THEN it would refuse to comply *sigh* > restore files > re-enable updates > re-acquire files > disable updates > *big sigh*

[stoppingby4now]

Kudos. This was a problem for me as well (just never reported). Actually, doesn't it require more than just TESV.exe though?

Whenever I would clear out my Data directory of all folders accept the big BSAs to establish a clean Skyrim install by reacquireing the small stuff, I would always forget to re-enable updates prior to deletion. Then when I waited for update, I realize that I need to enable updates again with Unplugged... THEN it would refuse to comply *sigh* > restore files > re-enable updates > re-acquire files > disable updates > *big sigh*

 

V1.2 required all of the files to be there, but I removed that in V1.3 so that only TESV.exe needed to be there. When V1.4 goes up, TESV.exe will still need to exist in order to disable Automatic Updates, but not to enable them.

[stoppingby4now]

Version 1.4 is now available.

[frihyland]

Yeah small problem, but not something you'd generally encounter so tough to test. I ran into it when uninstalling Skyrim without first enabling updates again and then reinstalling Skyrim . I should probably add that to the wiki as a best practice even though you've solved it now. :D