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How to back-up and safeguard your SkyrimSE from an unwanted Steam update.Back up your SkyrimSE.exe

Before the update comes around, so before 11 November 2021 you can make a copy of “SkyrimSE.exe” located in your Skyrim SE game folder. You can then use this backup to overwrite the SkyrimSE.exe in your game folder. Please make sure to also set your game to only update when you launch it as described below.

Set your game to only update on launch
1. Go to your Steam Library
2. Right-Click Skyrim Special Edition and select "Properties..."
3. In the left hand menu, go "Updates"
4. Under "Automatic Updates" select the option "Only update this game when I launch it"

Just to be on the safe side, you might want to backup your SkyrimSE.exe. To be even safer, you may also want to backup several files - or if you have the disk space available - your entire Skyrim SE folder.

List of files to backup on PC to be safe:
SkyrimSE.exe
Data/Skyrim.esm
Data/Update.esm
Data/Dawnguard.esm
Data/Hearthfire.esm
Data/Dragonborn.esm
Data/Skyrim - Interface.bsa
Data/Skyrim - Misc.bsa
Data/Skyrim - Patch.bsa

Once that is done, make sure to only launch Skyrim SE via your mod manager or via the SKSE loader - "skse64_loader.exe". Never, never, never click the play button on your Steam launcher or it will update.