I have Skyrim collector edition on pc.
It worked just fine a few weeks ago and now it doesn't even launch.

Can anyone help with that please?

Thanks < 3

What do you mean by doesn't launch? Steam won't work? Launching does nothing?

Steam works fine,
I did play Skyrim last week and all was fine.
Now I get to the main screen (Play/Options/Data files/tech support/Exit).
Upon pressing:'Play' nothing happens.

I did look at other threads, I did that 'check game yadda yadda integrity'.
Still doesn't work.
Any other leads?

Any mods installed that might have become outdated as of the latest patch last week?

Any modifications to the ini files since the last successful launch? Those don't reset if you verify the integrity of the game cache so any issues would persist.

i am having the same problem now. was working fine last night when i played it, but this afternoon ive booted up my pc to play and firstly it isnt even recognizing my toolbar icon anymore and when i go through the long route of opening it up, all it keeps doing to me when i click on play is bring up a windows control box which asks me if i want to allow the program to make changes to my pc. everytime i click on yes it just goes back to the skyrim options box, so i click play again and the same control box pops up and round and round we go in the same loop. just for the record i have no mods running at all. i always have steam set to offline mode,because i really dont trust it and as far as i am aware the last patch it updated to was 1.3. i desperately need help now as all this broken crap is starting to get rediculous. i thought after 1.3 fixed all my issue problems it was going to be fine and now this!?! please, please help, anyone!

Go to your steam folder, then steamapps/common/skyrim

Now right click TESV.exe, then go to compatibility and uncheck the boxes if any are checked. Such as run as administrator, or run in Windows XP compatibility mode etc etc.

Repeat this for skyrimlauncher.exe also.

Then try to launch the game in steam again. If you've done it right it will not ask you if you want to make changes to your computer.

thanks for the reply BigBadDaddy. ive just followed the steps you posted, however, there was no TESV.exe or tesvlauncher.exe, just one called SkyrimLauncher. my pc is set to 'show all hidden' files. i went into the properties for this and had a look at compatibility and nothing appaears to be checked in it. any other suggestions?

If there is no TESV.exe file, then that is why your game is not launching. Without it, you can't play the game.

Follow these steps and steam will download it for you automatically.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335

ive followed the link and done the verifying game cache files and it went through tht eprocess seemingly ok and said all files successfully verified, but nothing's changed, theres still no TESV.exe file and im still getting the windows control box asking to make changes. do you know why the TESV.exe file would suddenly be missing since last night whan ive not done a thing on my pc since playing apart from to boot it up today to play again? its making no sense to me!

If the file isn't hidden something or someone has deleted it. Thats not something the game would do, because the game runs off it.

Show hidden files in windows, and see if it's there or hidden.

Might also be worth searching your pc for TESV.exe

pc's been off since last night and im the only user of it as my husband has his own 3 laptops and is playing skyrim on xbox anyway. ive already tried the show hidden and search options and nothing. i am really grateful for all your suggestions though.

If you really have no TESV.exe file, the only thing I can suggest is downloading one from somewhere.

I'd upload mine for you but I'm not at my pc

You might try to reconcile your game. Some of these upgrades may break some of the code on some rigs. I had to do that after one of the earlier patches.
What it sounds like is that you are getting an imediate CTD and if so recocilating the files may just be your fix.

thanks for the offer and all your help. just to let you know ive finally got it fixed, well actually my husband did! the problem seems to have been that it wasnt connecting to steam properly so not actually verifying the files even though it said it was. in the end we had to uninstall everything and reinstall steam & skyrim again from scratch. it all appears to be working fine again now, but its taken a hell of a lot of messing about.

i have to say say the whole experience and hassel with steam is seriously making me consider never buying a game on pc again and just using xbox and thats something i thought i would NEVER say!

I'm glad you got it worked. I've got at least 25 games on steam, and the only one I've had a problem with is GTA3 crashing. I think every now and then, as is the case with PCs, a bug pops up.

I have the same issue now: TESV.exe is suddenly just gone, it's deleted and not by me

Actually Steam is the culprit here -- it will delete the Tesv.exe if you have it set to not auto update once you stop playing the game and there is an update available -- thus forcing you to update the next time you want to play !!

Sneaky buggers.