Earlier today I started downloading the texture pack from Bethesda on Steam. My internet connection is being unreasonably slow, however, and it's going to take 3-4 hours for it to finish. Since I don't get a lot of time to play, I'd rather pause / stop the download and play the game now, saving the download for another day.

This doesn't seem to be possible, however. If I try to play the game while the download is paused Steam just prevents it from running and resumes the download, and there appears to be no way of cancelling the download. So what gives? Has Steam hijacked my single-player game for hours on end, preventing me from playing my own game when I want to? Or is there a solution to this that I'm just ignorant of?

I've never had this problem - pausing a download has always been an option. If this does not work for you, disable your network connection and close Steam. When you relaunch Steam and you get an error saying it can't connect, choose Offline mode and play Skyrim. Then when you're done, re-enable your network connection and resume the download. It's not that difficult.

I've never had a problem with updates, btw what texture pack are you talking about?

Pausing the download is an option, it's just that I can't play the game while the download is paused. If I try to run the game it won't let me, and instead it resumes the download. I haven't tried shutting it down and restarting in offline mode yet, but I'll give that a try.


The texture pack that Bethesda released along with the Creation Kit. If you click on the "DLC" link on the right next to the game in Steam, it'll be available for you to download.