Installation question for Enderal and modded Skyrim players

[J'Sylvan]

Hello everyone. First post here on the forums as I just recently came across Enderal and am looking forward to playing the EV at release.

I was hoping that someone who's currently playing Enderal and also playing a modded Skyrim could answer some questions for me. I have seen it mentioned that the Enderal install has the ability to switch back and forth between Enderal and Skyrim if you want to play one or the other. Would anyone be able to explain to me in fairly specific terms how that is managed and where game and mod files are moved when this is done? I've seen people say that it's a simple button click and the files are moved but if possible I'd like to know what the exact folder structures are for each and where files are moved between installations.

My preference would be to be able to use two separate installations for a modded Skyrim and then the Enderal install and just select which one I want to play and not go through an uninstall/install process. That sounds a bit time consuming and unnecessary to me and it is also not good for a PC's hard drive in the long run to constantly be uninstalling, installing or moving files around.

I know it may be asking a bit much for a detailed explanation like this, and if no one cares to help ... that's fine, I'll work through it on my own. Anyway ... looking forward to playing the English version here soon.

Thanks to all at SureAI for all the work put into this project ...

[Xagul]

To make it short: You're asking too much.

However, Enderal identifies your Steam installation path and creates a copy of this folder prior to installing Enderal. Enderal basically uses the Sykrim folder. So when you use the roll-back function, which is included in the launcher (the button next to "Cancel"), in simple words the Enderal files will be deleted and the copy of the original Skyrim folder will be renamed to "Skyrim". That's all the magic - which also preserves all your oh so precious mods.

As it comes to Enderal and Skyrim at the same time: Well, this isn't an Enderal-specific problem. Enderal occupies the Skyrim folder, therefore it is the same problem like when you wanted to play Skyrim on two different accounts on the same computer while using only one Steam id. So this problem is older than Enderal and I have no solution to this. Others meanwhile may have, though.

[Caleb8980]

As it comes to Enderal and Skyrim at the same time: Well, this isn't an Enderal-specific problem. Enderal occupies the Skyrim folder, therefore it is the same problem like when you wanted to play Skyrim on two different accounts on the same computer while using only one Steam id. So this problem is older than Enderal and I have no solution to this. Others meanwhile may have, though.

Simpliest way should be to copy your Vanilla Skyrim folder - perhaps it would be enough in Sylvan's case to rename your Skyrim folder and create an empty new one called Skyrim. Then let Steam do an integrity check of your game data and it should download vanilla Skyrim (+the installed DLC and Workshop mods).

Then all you have to do is install Enderal into that folder. By renaming the Skyrim folder with Enderal installed into sth else and the original Skyrim folder back to Skyrim you can switch between the 2 versions without having to move a single file.

This should work, haven't tried it yet for this reason, but it at least works to have both the EV and German version of Enderal on your PC at the same time.

[Xagul]

Yes, that could work, indeed. And I might add: When applying mods, you should use some kind of mod manager. This way you can save the list of mods installed and re-install them with a few clicks. So switching back and forth should be really easy.

[J'Sylvan]

@Xagul and @Caleb8980 .... thanks so much for taking the time to give me some suggestions.

Here's what I was able to do and this is as close to how I wanted them installed as I can likely get. I really didn't want to have to uninstall/reinstall every time I wanted to switch between games because installation of Enderal takes me a little over 10 minutes.
Here's what I did ... and these steps were with a clean install of Skyrim:

• Create a different folder to install Skyrim to. My path is - Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Modded\Skyrim
• Copy files from a clean Skyrim install into folder created in (1).
• Launch Skyrim from default Skyrim launcher to create ini files in "Documents\my games\Skyrim".
• Make a copy of "Documents\my games\Skyrim" folder and leave it in "Documents\my games".
• Install Mod Organizer in folder of your choosing and point it to Skyrim install in "Skyrim Modded\Skyrim" folder (or wherever you have Skyrim installed now).
• When playing Skyrim, launch it through MO (using SKSE if installed).
• Before installation of Enderal, rename Skyrim folder in "Documents\my games\Skyrim" to Skyrim MO (or name of your choice). Then rename the copy of that folder you created in (4) back to Skyrim.
• Install Enderal into the default Skyrim installation.

After that, all that is needed to switch back and forth between games is to rename the appropriate folder in "Documents\my games\Skyrim" to "Skyrim" before launching the game. No more 10+ minute uninstallations/installations.