Just verified by logging into my steam account.

I decided to go ahead and log on for 2 reasons.

1. Verify if the steam settings would honor my choice to not auto update skyrim.
2. Go ahead and then get the new 1.3.10 LAA patch.


I verified that steam does not honor the do not autoupdate choice for skyrim (It started updating as soon as I logged on).

However, I am looking forward to the new patch improvements.

Thanks for the updates Bethesda Team!

Steam never did honor that config choice. Even after they just recently patched to fix it, it still won't stay where you set it. It is better than it was before, but at some point if the game or steam want to update, they will despite what you want.

They know what is best for us and will change/rearrange/update whenever they deem it necessary, no matter what we choose to do of the contrary.

That's not creepy, not at all.

Is there any guaranteed way to stop this happening? - I rely on steam for my social networking quite a bit (chatting in game and stuff), but the latest patch keeps breaking the game (1.3.10) so I've forcably rolled back to 1.3.7 (And it's working again now) - but so far the only solution to stopping it auto-breaking the game is to set steam to offline mode

Is this really the only solution?

Keep steam offline: Can't chat with friends, can play Skyrim.
Keep steam online: Turn Steam into an overglorified MSN, at the cost of being able to play the only steam game you have

Launch the game in offline mode. There is no other way to stop a game from updating when you launch it.

All the setting does is stop games from auto updating if you don't play them. (for example stops the tf2 daily update spam until you try to launch the game) But if you launch a game while online steam downloads the latest patch no matter what you have the setting to.

This is what I do also. However I usually disconnect from the net while playing skyrim, just to be safe.

Although I don't use the steam community, I have played with steam in offline mode while the connected to the net to chat w/ friends over teamspeak, etc.

@Ryuujin - Yeah that must be a hard choice for people who use steam for chatting. Good luck.

FYI - launching the game in offline mode will NOT stop it from updating Steam or games. Seen it with my own eyes about 3 weeks ago. Given that their recent patches did not fix the "don't update this game" feature, I see no reason to believe they fixed updating while in Offline mode either.

Single best way you can stop Steam from updating a game, is to block it at your firewall.

The auto-update option is for just that: auto-update. If you have the game set to not auto-update, all it means is that Steam won't download the patch for you when it finds a new one. You will still download the update when you start up the game. It's intended behavior for Steam's update system. Short of blocking Steam via your firewall, you will always be patched and up-to-date when you start a game.

While i understand they want to streamline playing games, I do feel like they're verging on the side of treating us like idiots. Being fully patched is not always the best case scenario - take minecraft for example. People routinely stay behind on patches because their favourite server or mods require additional updates to stay compatible with the changes. If the end-user feels that patching at this time is inappropriate, then Valve should respect that decision and not throw a hissy fit, stamp their foot and say "Oh, well if you arn't going to use our patch, we'll cut you off from our services til you change your mind"

Option #3 --- Rename your Skyrim folder after shutting down so the auto updater can not find the files to update (figure it can not update files it can not find on your system !!) and then go to offline mode and rerename the folder when you want to play the game !

That still has the same issue as #1 - cannot play and chat to friends at the same time (And if I'm on the computer, I'm probably gaming ;p)