I'm sure this has been covered somewhere, but I can't seem to find a fix for my Skyrim woes. Everything is fine until I get to the character creation screen, then things just lock up. I can't select a character, modify it, nada. I can't even finish with a default Nord, when I try to name it, things just lock up. I will admit to not being the most tech-savy guy to turn on a computer, but to avoid the flood of "hey dumb new player..." flames, let's just assume:

-yes, my comp is more than able to run Skyrim, runs Win7, DirectX, drivers etc. are up to date
-I have checked every file, re-installed, followed every install guide I can find here or on the Steam boards
-no mods, legal copies etc.


If someone could point me in the direction of a fix, I'd be a happy guy, otherwise it's back to the consoles for me Thanks in advance...

Up to date drivers may not be the best option. If you are running an AMD or ATI card, then the current 12.2 drivers are, well, crap and the game barely runs. 12.1 is what you want for AMD/ATI I am not sure if the current Nvidia's are good or not, there was a run of those drivers that were bad for the game too. There is a thread on the new Nvidia drivers on the first page of the PC section, check that if you have that card.

Also, try the game under a strict clean boot, as in only having Steam Running. Some Anti-virus programs are not kind to gaming

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796

Something else to try, are you running the game as an Administrator? I think section where you are is where the game writes the INI file for the first time and not being the admin can cause issues like this.

The last thing to check are Codecs, but try the above first.

Thanks very much for your time