After downloading Bethesda's high res DLC my game is broke. It will not save preferences (like resolution, AA, etc) when you try to change them by clicking options in the launch menu. I can't even disable the DLC that broke my game because "data files" is greyed out (even after adding the [launcher] *etc* = 1 stuff to the pref.ini folder.

I had previously completely uninstalled steam and skyrim, deleted all assosiated files and folders, and ran ccleaner to clear out the registry, and rebooted before re-installig steam and re-downloading skyrim. Only to my horror do I see that damn high res dlc had downloaded along with my game.

Can someone help?

Contact Steam Support and ask them to remove it from your account. However, the DLC did not bork your game. It can't. It's just 2 BSA files and 2 dummy ESP files. The BSA files contain textures. They can't bork the game in that manner.

Thanks, do you have a prefered contact number for them?
Also any ideas what is going on with my .ini files then? Or any ideas to fix the game?

Contact them via the online help form.

I can't tell you a thing for a couple reasons:

1) This is in the wrong board for support.
2) I don't have a clue what your setup is like.

However, I can tell you that the DLC is not causing any of that. It literally cannot.

Ok I fixed my issues; there are a few related issues, but I was able to get the data files button to work by following these steps: (and it fixed other stuff too)

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1400706-skyrim-ini-fix/