Some of my settings kept reverting back to default for no apparent reason. Quite frustrating. Once I stopped using the launcher and started straight from the .exe this behavior stopped and my settings stuck. Coincidence? Anyone else observe similar behavior?

Are you running the game as the Administrator? (W7/Vista only)

Is your INI set to Read Only?

You can make the .ini "read only"

The settings were saved ok. I verified before starting the game. As I said, once I stopped using the launcher my settings stuck. Didn't FO:NV have have a similar issue?

I have UAC turned off completely.

No your not imagining things -- I always add comments with the defaults when I change a setting -- I disabled the shadows due to the poor implementation of them giving me headaches when the wholle screen flickers as the update every few secoonds --- added comments to note the defaults on the 2 settings went back after running the game once and the comments have all disappeared and 1 of the settings had reverted from =0 to =2000.0000 (it's default ) !! -- Good to know that using the TESV.exe file will stop that instead of having to replace the ini with a backup each time before launching !


Yes but that can cause other problems -- since the game can not update any settings as it quits -- ie. you'll overwrite your screenshots each time you launch the game for a new sessions if you do not rename them since the index can not be updated in the .ini file ! -- and the game sometimes also crashes or hangs for awhile on exit when it tries to save the session settings.

The specific setting that I nticed was a shadow realted one too. fShadowDistance=2500.0000 reverted back to fShadowDistance=8000.0000. It seems launching with .exe has stopped this behavior.

Same setting I had revert from =0 you must have a bit better GPU than I do since your defaul was a bit higher ! -- Guess the game doesn;t like them being shut off completely !! will be using the TESV.exe from now on then ( do the same with OB unless I need to change a setting in the launcher or activate a data file. Plus an added benefit of doing that for this game is it does not launch STEAM either !!

Agree. I hope others pick up on this thread. Seems a lot of folks are having issues with settings mysteriously reverting back to defaults................

(I edited above post to make more sense. The setting that I noticed was fShadowDistance=2500.0000 reverted back to fShadowDistance=8000.0000 )

Well... blah. So I'm guessing any time we run Steam to get our updates, we're going to have to go and restore the INI each time?

I have started backing it up for just that purpose.......

Same here -- had done that before using the TESV.exe to start the game --- ANd I think it is the launcher changing the settings back to default as I had the shadow quality set to low there and assume you had it set to high or Ultra since your default was 8000 ! so it is restoring to the default based on the launcher options you have chosen -- It probably save the default settings from the launcher each time the game loads overriding any changes made to those corresponding choices - even if you have not clicked any changes in the launcher ! (which is why only certain settings are being reset !

Yeah. It's just annoying, as we didn't have the problem of losing our INI tweaks in either Morrowind or Oblivion. The only backup I ever made of the INI file for Oblivion was of the original before I started messing with it, and I only had to do that once. Never needed it again in the almost 4 years I played the game.

What's even worse is I always place notes at the end of the line with the defaults so I know which setting I've changed and what they originally were set to and the reverting is also deleting the comments -- So I can no longer tell what I've been playing with and what it was to start with !

...back to page one.

I'll toss in another bump for interest along with a link to my thread, which is semi-related: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1263031-whats-the-difference-between-all-these-ini-files/

I've actually decided to just do what Zanderat does and launch Skyrim directly from the .exe, because I'm still not totally sure how the launcher, the launcher's Options settings, and all the .ini files interact.

Thanks Vain for your research. I have to the same place. Confused. But for now, launching from the .exe will solve the immediate problem of the ini being reset.