SureAI

After the last update, Enderal won't start. It crashes on launch, and says "fs.dll" is responsible.
I deleted it out of the SKSE folder and the game loaded fine. Do I need that DLL? What does it do?
Is it busted in the last update or something?

Don't delete it, it will break your save and lots of functionalities of the game like achievements, alchemy the new classes and more.

The crash is most likely not related to the .dll file but most likely related to something that is influenced by it or by something that influences it.

Do you have any additional mods installed? If so, what mods?

No, no mods. JUST the game. On a fresh install.
And it doesnt even get to the part where it loads a game. Its crashing before it even gets to the title screen. I click to run the game, the screen goes black like its starting, then instant crash.

Deleting FS.dll allowed the game to start. Also googling fs.dll and downloading the first one I saw from one of those random dll sites and replacing yours with it worked.

That's not how it works. You just can't download a file that is named the same from the internet. They are meant for other programs and purposes.
As I already said, your game will be broken even if it currently lauches.

If you don't have any additional mods installed. Then make sure that the original FS.dll is placed back where it was and make sure that it is whitelisted on every anti-virus program you have. They most likely block it in some way.

Okay, so here's what I did. First I tried a fresh reinstall. Got the same crash. As soon as I clicked on the game to launch, the screen went black and it would start to load, then crash to desktop before even getting to title screen. Telling me fs.dll was responsible.
Next, I went to a backup hardrive I have. Enderal was on there. The last backup I took was before the latest update. The version on the backup was 1.5.4.0 I think? I took its fs.dll and replaced the one in the new install with it and the game worked. Finally, I uninstalled the game once more and reinstalled it, and THAT time it worked. So I don't know what was up. But that's where the problem ended. I never got to disabling anti virus stuff yet.