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]

Sooo steam just deleted my tesv.exe and update.esm for me. And the backups that a made using steam won't install so I was forced to upgrade. Steam is nasty :(

[Vypir]

Skyrim Unplugged CANNOT protect you if you run SkyrimLauncher.exe with administrator rights. I did this and it deleted TESV.exe as well as several other vital files, even though Steam was still prevented from updating them to their 1.6 versions.

[frihyland]

I don't run anything with admin rights. It deleted them anyway. Its rather annoying but there is still no safe way to run the launcher :P

[z929669]

if you are admin and run something wo UAC enabled, then you would be running as admin by default....

 

I use SU and have system restore active on my game drive. Steam can't touch me

[frihyland]

I'm not trusting anything but a full 7zip backup of the skyrim directory (which I have if I need it). I'm not actually playing skyrim right now anyway. Windows has never had any kind of decent file protections so its not very surprising.

[stoppingby4now]

You are still running Windows 8 right? I'm not sure if there is anything different in that compared to 7 and below. In my testing on Windows 7, any program I ran was not able to delete/modify files when I set the permissions as I do in SU. I believe something else is amiss. Do you have UAC disabled?

[Vypir]

In my case, I do have UAC disabled. So yes, I see how it's just operator error on my part. I'll just make sure to keep backups handy.

[MadWizard25]

I run with UAC off in win 7 as an admin account, but with no admin rights assigned to the launcher. So far it hasnt decided to arbitrarily delete anything (yet...).

[Vypir]

I ran the launcher again last night and it didn't delete anything. I wonder if it only makes one attempt when a new patch has become available. Now I'm curious to see if Steam will automatically update once I decide to allow it to give me 1.6.

I run with UAC off in win 7 as an admin account' date=' but with no admin rights assigned to the launcher. So far it hasnt decided to arbitrarily delete anything (yet...).[/quote']The launcher will assume the permissions of the user that executes it. Therefore, if you're running as an admin, the launcher will have administrative rights.

[stoppingby4now]

It is my experience that Steam does not constantly poll the game version and attempt to apply an update. Even when enabling Automatic Updates, the game does not update right away, but eventually will if left to its own device (I have enabled Automatic Updates and ran Skyrim Launcher when a new patch is available, and no update occured). I just don't know what all of the triggers are for when Steam decides to check versions.

 

So in other words, forcing Steam to obey updates will prevent it from automatically downloading files related to the new patch. Whether SkyrimLauncher or Steam initiates the file deletion I am not 100% sure, I just know it happens (my gut tells me its SkyrimLauncher). But the only way for the deletion to occur is to have Administrative rights on the process that is attempting the deletion (Windows Explorer is an exception to this). If SkyrimLauncher is not being ran as Administrator, I'm pretty sure the only other possibility that could cause the missing files is having UAC disabled.

 

The problem is even harder to lock down due to SKSE which completely bypasses Steam. So even if you have UAC disabled, you likely will not see the problem unless you happen to launch SkyrimLauncher for some other reason, either directly or via Steam.

 

With that said, I need more feedback for cases where TESV.exe disappears while Automatic Updates are disabled. Something along the lines of...

• Value of HCU\Software\Valve\Steam\Apps\72850\EnableCacheLoading in the registry.
• Verify Security permissions on SkyrimLauncher.exe to ensure that a DACL exists of type Deny for your username (specifically the DACL should be set to Deny Delete and Deny Create files / write data).
• Preferable that SkyrimLauncher.exe is NOT set to run as Administrator.
• Is UAC disabled?
• Do you launch the game via SKSE, and if so, have you launched SkyrimLauncher.exe at least one time since patch 1.6 has been out?

[z929669]

Value of HCU\Software\Valve\Steam\Apps\72850\EnableCacheLoading in the registry.

= 0 for me (I have SU 1.4 set to disable updates and have for awhile now)

Verify Security permissions on SkyrimLauncher.exe to ensure that a DACL exists of type Deny for your username (specifically the DACL should be set to Deny Delete and Deny Create files / write data).

My launcher has full admin rights under my user account.

Is UAC disabled?

Yes indeed' date=' always.

Do you launch the game via SKSE' date=' and if so, have you launched SkyrimLauncher.exe at least one time since patch 1.6 has been out?[/quote']

For the past month or more, I launch using the SkyrimLauncher and NOT SKSE, as I am in pure testing mode.

 

NOTE: I am still at v1.5.26 after using the launcher a great many times including just previous to my post.

 

Interestingly, I ALWAYS get prompted to set my video options at startup using the launcher, regardless of whether or not I have previously set them and no matter if I completely launch the game or not (it really should not matter though... the settings should stick, regardless, as the INIs are updated in real time). I have confirmed that my INIs get my chosen settings, but Skyrim persists in this irritating behavior.

 

Is there an ini setting I need to set to force the launcher options to stick?

[Neovalen]

This is a feature request for Skyrim Unplugged... can you add Creation Kit Unplugged into the same tool? Especially with this latest CK update, there are HUGE bug reports coming in.

 

Can't modify armor, can't modify races, etc etc.

[frihyland]

For me I was running with all settings in steam set to do not update, and running in online mode, and Skyrim unplugged ver 1.4 set to disable.

 

I haven't touched UAC or Administrator rights on this computer at all its a fresh windows install (2 weeks or so) with all defaults for the system and for files.

 

Also a completely vanilla skyrim install. It occurred after literally dozens of launchings of the game from the launcher rebuilding the ini's in various configs each time and playing through the intro.

[stoppingby4now]

Verify

Security permissions on SkyrimLauncher.exe to ensure that a DACL exists

of type Deny for your username (specifically the DACL should be set to

Deny Delete and Deny Create files / write data).

My launcher has full admin rights under my user account.

 

I'm assuming it does, but I need to know specifically if the deny rule for your username exists. Right click on the executable, select properties, then click on the Security tab. Click on the Advanced button and in the list should be an entry with Type=Deny for your username. If you click on that entry then click the Edit button, there should only be two entries: Deny Delete & Deny Create files / write data.

 

Do you launch the game via SKSE, and if so, have you launched SkyrimLauncher.exe at least one time since patch 1.6 has been out?

For the past month or more, I launch using the SkyrimLauncher and NOT SKSE, as I am in pure testing mode.

 

 

Based on the above, either UAC being disabled will not allow the file to be deleted, or SkyrimLauncher hasn't performed a check for a newer version yet.

NOTE: I am still at v1.5.26 after using the launcher a great many times including just previous to my post.

Interestingly, I ALWAYS get prompted to set my video options at startup using the launcher, regardless of whether or not I have previously set them and no matter if I completely launch the game or not (it really should not matter though... the settings should stick, regardless, as the INIs are updated in real time). I have confirmed that my INIs get my chosen settings, but Skyrim persists in this irritating behavior.

Is there an ini setting I need to set to force the launcher options to stick?

 

There are certain settings in the ini files that when tweaked will cause that behavior. I don't know specifically which ones though. In the testing I did with ENB shadows, I started with a fresh INI and only tweaked shadow settings and the launcher did not do that to me. Whenever I did full tweaks to INI files though, it would do it every time.

[stoppingby4now]

This is a feature request for Skyrim Unplugged... can you add Creation Kit Unplugged into the same tool? Especially with this latest CK update, there are HUGE bug reports coming in.

Can't modify armor, can't modify races, etc etc.

 

I'm going to look into that for next release. I just installed it last night so I can determine what files were installed, and so far I have the following list:

• CreationKit.exe
• ssce5432.dll
• flowchartx32.dll
• Archive.exe
• SkyrimEditor.ini
• lex/
• Papyrus Compiler/
• Data/DialogueViews/
• Data/Interface/ (directory timestamp updated but no files placed inside)
• Data/LSData/
• Data/shadersfx/
• Data/Sound/
• Data/Strings/ (this is included in file lockdowns for Skyrim)