I'm asking this even though I fear it's an 'obvious' because I don't want to destroy my existing game while plodding through STEP. :)
I currently have a reasonably new Oldrim installation which I've used Vortex to manage after getting back to the game after nearly 4 years (previously I used STEP for that).
I now want to start a new installation from scratch using STEP's method and of course MO2, while allowing me to continue to re-acquaint myself with the game for some time using my current installation.
My plan is to rename my existing SKYRIM directories in the STEAMAPPS\COMMON and the MY GAMES folders to, say SKYRIM-VORTEX and then use Steam to re-install a clean new copy, after which I would rename the new SKYRIM directories as -STEP, then I would write some simple .BATs to set up the playable SKYRIM directories from whichever installation I want to use at any particular time.
Long ago I did the same thing for a CD-installed Morrowind to great effect, but with Skyrim there's one great 'unknown' to me: STEAM. It doesn't seem to allow for two installations of the same game (hence the copying/renaming scripts to 'fool' it) but it's a black-box to me and I don't know if it stores data somewhere other than those two locations I've noted above which will mean it would be confused by my changing the directories from beneath it, as it were.
Before I spend a lot of time preparing all this and plodding through STEP only to find my current game somehow got trashed due to something STEAM did I thought I'd ask here if there are any obvious 'gotchas' which means this is doomed to failure before I start.
Appreciate any comments. :)
[edit]
The thought just occurred to me, I think I should be able to use separate trees under STEAMAPPS\COMMON to play the game without having to move one of them to a SKYRIM tree, and only need to manage the MY GAMES tree since the name of the is presumably hard-coded into the SKYRIM.EXE itself; again as long as STEAM doesn't mind if there's a tree in COMMON that isn't actually a game it installed there.
Would this work?
Edited by Kraggy, 16 November 2018 - 10:12 AM.