Two Versions of Skyrim

[generalkenobisiye]

Hello all.

I recently went through the painful process of uninstalling and then reinstalling Skyrim without any Sexlab or any mods that use SKSE other than the SKYUI, Dance of Death, and Better Vampires. It seems that the mods Become a Bard, and possibly the Sexlab Framework mods I had installed broke Dawnguard and even the main quest by not allowing Serana to spawn at Fort Dawnguard to begin the Prophet Quest, and also breaking the Civil War Quests after A False Front by not giving me any "Reporting for Duty" options to begin the fort battle.

 

To protect myself from having to reinstall the game ALL over AGAIN, I've begun keeping a "back up" copy of the entire game folder on my 2nd HDD. Turns out that back up version also runs as well as the "main" install. So I got the idea of maybe instead of just having one install of Skyrim, that I could have two. Not in the same default folder, mind you, but say two Skyrim folders in the Steam directory. One named Skyrim by default, and the other named something like "Sexlab Skyrim" that I can install and test Sexlab mods. Well, I've tried this, but the second version does not load the mods. They aren't even on the plugin list.

 

I know there are profile swappers, and there is even SIS, but those don't do what I need. I need to be able to save the Sexlab Skyrim games separate from the default directory games, and also be able to load the sexlab mods. The Sexlab version runs only the mods that were installed at the time of the copy, and none of the sex lab mods I've installed since. I figured because the game is still going by the default plugin folder rather than another. Skyrim Installation Swapper moves files to different locations between "installations", but it seems to in fact be just ONE installation with mods moved around. Any ideas on how I can use the 2nd version and load the new mods? All these mods leave scripts behind in the saves, and I want to keep the original version's saves clean.

[lordofthedread]

Mod organizer seems to be the answer you are looking for.

[generalkenobisiye]

Well, I figured it out. It's not pretty but it works. I created "Skyrim" and "sexlab" folders in my saves and moved all my non sexlab saves into the skyrim folder. The saves from before reinstallation still have sexlab scripts in them, I discovered that scripts can stay in old saves even if the mods were removed as instructed. I then went into the User\(name)\Appdata\local etc etc folder and created 2 new folders in there. "Sexlab" and "Skyrim" and backed up the txt files; DLClist, Loadorder, and Plugins into the skyrim folder. I then edited those texts files to include the sexlab mods in the proper order. I then started a new game using the SKSE loader in the Sexlab Copy of my game, and BAM! The sexlab mods worked. After messing around for a couple of hours, I moved all the sexlab saves and edited txt files into the sexlab folders I created and restored the original files and saves. The Original game still works fine, and there isn't even a warning that the saves rely on content no longer available. So I did it right. I just wish I could find a faster way of doing this stuff.

[hryh23k9823u]

Lol, instead of doing all that stuff, just use Mod Organizer. It's easier and cleaner while allowing as much control (or more) than manual installation, and you can switch mod profiles (diferent saves, mods, ini's etc.) with a single click. And only using a single skyrim installation, because it uses a virtual data directory, it doesn't install anything inside the actual skyrim folder.

[Deedlit]

agree with what guys saying about using MO, i just made that: 1 profile just with skyrim/unofficial patches/fnis/skse (called that default/vanilla) one with cbbe another with dreamgirl and works great, and if i do a really huge mess i just need delete my ruined preset and do a new with base of default/vanilla one.