Installed Skyrim then launched with steam and there is no Play option just install and tech support and so forth.
when i click install windows asks for permission for install and if i hit yes it just restarts the launcher with no chance
have reinstalled a few times and not sure what to do anymore.

I have not heard of this before, but just for kicks, are you running Windows 7 AND have you tried restarting? UAC virtualization shouldn't be getting in the way, but... never know

So it's the game launcher with the snowy background that's only showing "install" on it? Sounds like some registry key didn't quite make it into your system and the launcher's not detecting the game install.

Does the game launch correctly if you launch TESV.exe from Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim?

yes im running windows 7 and have tried restarting. ive tried to just reinstall and toltaly uninstall then reinstall from disk andbout 3 times each now.....

bump all need some help

Can you run it directly from TESV.exe?

that did launch but it is in a windowed mode that is sized way too big for my to see the options on the left at least we made some progress.
and ideas

thank you so much guys

I also believe this is a registry problem. Do you have any anti malware stuff installed that may be blocking the edit of the registry somehow?
This could include your anti virus programs.

Also try running the install under admin privs if it didnt do so already.
If none of this works you could try manually sifting through the registry to find the skyrim files.

I cannot help you with the details of this but if you want to try this i suggest you make a new topic and ask for someone familiar with this sort of thing to help you out.

That's all i can think of for now, i hope it helps you.

TRy launching the game again using TesV.exe -- start the game and make a save - exit and try the launcher again.

If it still does not have play go back and launch again using TESV.exe - open the console (~ key) and type saveini (this force saves an ini file) - exit and retry the launcher again ( One of these may get the launcher to see that the game is installed and are easy enough to test so couldn't hurt !

Tried verifying the game files? You may be missing something. If everything is there, make a backup of it, uninstall, then reinstall from backup.

so far the lancher still dosnt work right and tried what yall said i can get the game to run its just now this display is all screwed up is there a hotkey to go from windowed mode to full screen

You can manually set it in the skyrimprefs,ini file (located in My Documents\My Games\Skyrim\ ) find the Skyrimprefs.ini file in that folder and open it using Notepad - find the lines below and change them to your screen resolution. ( bFullScreen=1 means full screen mode =0 is windowed )

it says that isn't a supported display size...

Adjust the H and w sizes to match your monitor resolution ! (my monitor is 1920x1080 which is what those settings are -- if you have a different size monitor yours will be different.

ok i know this is going to be a dumb question but how do i find that? and an update i deleted the old prefs folder and restarted the game and now i have a pretty small windowed mode so again better but still not there yet lol