OK so I just got home, disk in hand, put it in my computer and Steam pops up and is trying to download something, but it's taking forever! I'm at 2% after 20 minutes. Christ I wait 5 years to play this game and now I'm at 2%? I thought all that came from steam was the executable unlock code or something? Is this that day 1 patch they were talking about? Are there assets on that patch besides the exe? This is nuts, I'm ready to play but have to download some loaf from Steam. IS it downloading the entire game? What is the disk for? I'd have preloaded from steam had I known the disk install you buy at the store isn't good for anything but an activation code.

Nevermind, I found the solution here: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1255286-pc-installing-skyrim-from-disk-not-steam/

Steaming pile was trying to download the whole game. How stupid.

There is a thread http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1255286-pc-installing-skyrim-from-disk-not-steam/ -- that tells you how to force the game to install from the DVD instead of downloading the entire thing from Steam (seems steam tries to download the entire thing by default even though the DVD has the files on it ! --- the day one patch is actually a fairly small patch so shouldn't take long to update after you install from the DVD !

This is just one of the reasons I hate for game companies to use STEAM in the first place !

EDIT : Too slow to respond - Glad you found it !