I'm a new user of Wrye Bash and really love it so far. Hard learning curve, but worth it for the results! I'm currently running it on TES4 but am migrating my TES5 installation to WB...and that's where this forum's help is needed.

My wife and I share a fairly beefy gaming system connected to our large TV, so that we can enjoy the game together. We have two legally-licensed copies of Skyrim because we both are modders, and we want to configure the gaming system so that each of us has Skyrim in our own user home directory, *entirely independent* installations.

In Oblivion this is easy -- just install the game in the user directory, add Wrye Bash and other tools, and done. In Skyrim, we have Steam forced upon us, and Steam doesn't want to allow a user-local installation. I'm hoping that there may be some way to work the needed magic using Wrye Bash. Alternatively, this forum seems to be populated by people who have boarded the Clue Bus, so perhaps someone else has already solved this problem and can provide a link or a hint as to how.

I've been all over the Net searching for a solution, and have tried everything I can think of on my own. The problem with searching the Net is that all the relevant search keys get you the often-asked question "Can I install one Skyrim license on more than one computer?" I want to do the reverse, and install two licensed Skyrims on *one* computer. But of course search engines don't understand the difference.

Neither, unfortunately, do the people at Steam tech support. They tell you that Steam will respect user-local mod enabling (which is correct), but this doesn't allow different users to install or not install mods that replace vanilla meshes and textures. Personally, I think the Steam people are trying, but I think they're really not prepared to deal with a game that is as moddable as Elder Scrolls. Steam probably works fine for typical games, but Bethesda's openness presents a special challenge for them.

In addition to the shared-computer issue, this setup is also relevant to allow a disciplined development-test-production gaming environment.

So, to summarize, the desired setup is this:

* I have a copy of Steam and Skyrim and Wrye Bash installed to my user directory.
* She has a copy of Steam and Skyrim and Wrye Bash installed to her user directory.
* The two installations are different Skyrim license keys, different Steam accounts, and are unaware of each other's existence.

But, if this is not possible, is Wrye Bash able to provide some sort of user-specific profiling that would allow a workaround within a shared Steam installation? I've been through the menus and documentation of WB and don't see anything that will do this, but I also note that there is a lot of functionality in WB that I don't yet fully understand. This is a real power tool, and I realize (and accept) that it will take some time and effort to learn to use it well.

Thanks for any help. I apologize that this is perhaps borderline-topic for this forum, but honestly I couldn't find any other forum where it fit better, because I think WB is the right (and possibly only) way to accomplish what I want. I'm not optimistic that the Steam part of the problem can be solved.

[EDIT] I took deaths_soul's suggestion and have asked this to be broken out to a separate topic by the moderators. [/EDIT]

Log in to the account you want, install things on a per account basis. You're trying to do a global, which won't work for what you want. You want to install individually.

Could very well be wrong, but I know I've done that on corporate machines with different software.

Also, this probably belongs in a separate topic as it really doesn't have much to do with this topic. You can request that a mod break it out by reporting your post, if you want. If you do, might be best to get mine broken out as well.

You can have user profiles in Wrye Bash that have separate load orders and savegames, but I don't think profiles extend to installed mods, so any file replacers would still act globally (unless they were packed as a BSA and loaded via a plugin, in which case they'd be tied to load order and through that to your profiles).

Yep death's soul got it, you will need to log on as different users and install a different copy of skyrim for each user as well and any managers or mods (make sure the install for all users option is unchecked!). The key here is that Steam itself will need to be installed locally to each user first as that completely controls the skyrim install. It sounds like you have users set up already but check out Microsoft.com if the computer isn't set up with different user logins yet.