well I kept 1.4 for a bit with no problems. Steam did not try and update. I played around with 1.5 a little on my other PC. Wanted to see what was the patch or mods that was giving me trouble. I didn't have any mods, except ENB. Turns out, as a lot of you may know already that it is the culprit on graphics and removed it.

So what I did, using 1.4, was went to Breezehome with all three of my characters. Used 'pcb' in the console and made a fresh save. I backed up my skyrim folder and deactivated/uninstalled all of my mods. There was still a bunch of stuff left over. One, I found out a while ago that the Workshop does not uninstall mods when you unsubscribe, so I'm pretty sure some of it was from there. Also, if you manually update or change files in the NMM won't always uninstall them.

I used the other PC to verify what files were necessary to run the base game and deleted everything (not sure I would recommend doing this. USER BEWARE). I made back ups of my Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs,ini. I used the Steam function to Verify files which updated to 1.5 and hopefully it checked to see if I deleted anything I shouldn't have. Updated SKSE. Went into the game and made fresh saves.

using the brand new saves, I have spent most of last night and today putting back most of my mods one at a time and testing them. I left out a couple that were causing CTD's. One was actually from before 1.5 but never found which one till now, bonus. I left out mods that I figured need updated such as any killmove mods. Detailed Cities might have been one of the MODs that was causing a CTD when fast traveling to Whiterun. If I restarted the game, then I could then get there. Have just added it back and not tested enough to see if still doing it now the Data folder is cleaned out.

Went back to using RCRN for lighting and actually it is running faster on 1.5. In fact, I have noticed overall performance is better with 1.5. Some flickering with snow in the mountains at distance.

Going to try actually playing today and see how it goes. I think I will be using my files from my last 1.4 saves because they will have data for Warzones and Dynamic Merchants.

I have a backup of every TESV exe their ever was.

If I don't like a new patch I can just copy and paste the old exe of my choice from my backups. Its not illegal, I payed for these exe's so I'll do whatever the hell I want with em...

The 'previous version' thing will only work if you've turned that system on in Windows 7. (Does that turn on automatically for the C drive?)

Only issue I've seen after playing 5 hours or so is that my bows seem to do more damage. The game is definitely not unplayable for me. In fact, it's as good as ever. I don't understand why everyone doesn't have the same issues.

Apparently it does turn it on automatically or I don't remember turning it on.


Bow s do seem to do more damage. I also noticed some of my armor will go from say a rating of 70 to 88 when I select it. I don't know if it stays that way though. I don't really know what is going on.

it's not really "gone", it's just absorbed into Gamefly. The only thing lost in the transition seems to be the free hitpoints games (which svcks, but meh, they were free)

What mods and how did you remove them? You are aware that just removing a mod doesnt necessarily mean its influence is gone. Depending on what they do, they can cause instability in save games even after the mod is removed. The question is do you get such issues when you start a new game with no mods. Otherwise your point is irrelevent.

Can someone make a list of these new problems because I am not seeing any.

True, but D2D didn't go out of business-- they merged with gamefly.com. If you go there, you can access just about all your D2D keys and downloads. It's a little oddball where you have to click on purchase order #s instead of plain text game names but... it works. Gamefly now offers PC game downloads, same as D2D.

The major one I noticed (especially since I just loaded up Steam/Skyrim for a 2nd play through after my first months ago. Updated all my mods, etc.
And no SSAO (Ambient Occlusion) which really screws the fidelity.. *sigh* Been searching the mods to see if any have a workaround such as ENB but unsure yet.

Agreed. Only real issue is no AO and a slight FPS decrease for me in some areas (3-4). Had a couple of graphical anomalies before updating my mods. Just wish skyboost was working with 1.5.

Make sure to do a clean save before updating Skyrim and installing new/updated mods if possible. If you still notice problems after that, start a new game and see if the problems are gone. If they are, it's time to kill off that old character or double check that your mods are all compatible with the new patch.

Simple fact is if you are going to mod your game, you'd better be prepared to do some research and prep everytime a new patch arrives. If you've played elder scrolls games before, you should already know this.

Bethesda has done us the favor of giving us the tools to customize out own game experience through modding. Let's not penalize them for that. Their priority is patching the vanilla game, not testing every mod combination out there.

Compare this to companies like RockStar and others who deliberately discourage game modding.

start > program > accesories > systemrecovery
recover to a point you had 1.4, should work i guess?

True. I had that and suddenly the main Skyrim exe was gone, forcing me to download the new patch
As for the OP: like many said, Steam is in fact forcing you to use the latest versions. For me Skyrim was also the first Steam based game and it will also be the last. Worst thing ever, that whole Steam

I know for own experience that this does work ... but only for a short while cause one way or the other, Steam is forcing the latest patch upon you. In my (and other peoples too) the main Skyrim file TESV.exe was suddenly gone. Turns out that even when you set Steam to no connection and no update, it still does that