Saying do not update did NOT work for me. Bethesda's instructions to steam involved the first part of patch being the trigger which is why if it just starts up and you stop it you still cannot play as the most important bit gets done first. After the patch it switched me back to auto-update. The only thing I can think of is a combo no update with offline.

Kinda sad that even atari and EA can patch games and not have their customer base pratically begging for them to take them back.

Steam took that option away? Mine only has one option which is: update the game automatically.

Not kidding. Just went and rechecked.

I'm playing in offline mode which seems to have prevented the update - so I don't plan to go online for any of my other games til this fiasco is straightened out.

What anoys me is that I come back home from work thinking to myself I had updates for skyrim turned off, turn steam on go check some mails, when I realise game was patched I raged At least give the option to rollback to the previous version.

I think it is time to involve the BBB. I like Skyrim but I think most people's common sense would agree that allowing a second party to high jack my computer and item I've paid for at will is utter crap no matter what they put in the EULA.

Bethesda/Zenimax - the richer they get the more arrogant and abusive they become.

Have money = screw the people that made them grow in the first place.

So I am confused by all the replies. I ahve it so that Steam does not start when my computer starts. I looked at my exe and it has not been updated yet. So...how would I prevent this horrendous game-breaking crappy patch from ever hitting my machine. Is there hope for that? I figure...if I launch Steam...it will be too late...no? Can I disconnect the internet before launching?

Unfortunately unless steam was in offline mode the last time you closed it you have no choice but to open it and go online and therefore end up forced to download the patch.
The only other way to avoid it is if you happen to be using the tesv.exe from before the forced steam drm update and can run that without steam opening.

Suggested course of action if you want to play but weren't offline before:

• Rename Skyrim folder underneath Steam's common folder, or just move it to somewhere else on the same drive.
  
• Start up Steam, then go force it to run in offline mode. It won't patch Skyrim since the files aren't there.
  
• Close and re-open Steam and verify it isn't running online.
  
• Close Steam once more, move the Skyrim folder back underneath the common folder.
  
• Re-start Steam and you should be good to play.

Note: I haven't tried this myself, but I'm about to. Should work fine.

IF you have enough HDD space (and who doesn't nowadays !) -- Use 7 zip to make a compressed copy of your Skyrim Folder -- once done let it connect to steam and turn it to Offline mode (it will probably not let you until it already deletes your TESV.exe since they set it to do that before even downloading the patch !!) -- Once you are sure it is set to offline mode unzip the compressed file back to your Skyrim folder and you will be back to the prepatch version of the game (Keep a copy of the 7zip file just in case they somehow force the download again !! ( Steam seems to find a way if you let it !!)

THe patch only changes a few of the files ( Data\Skyrim-Interface.bsa , TesV.exe, etc. - IIRC No changes to the Update.esm file which is surprising - but it is best to backup all of them just in case !)

@JAga -- Be sure to make a copy of the TESV.exe file -- Not sure but I wouldn't put it past Steam to do a search for the file on your system and delete it even if you have moved it to another folder !!

Gosh...what a horrible deployment plan..as pros..they should know that you always leave the ability to pull a patch and roll back. I think they would rather use us all as crowd testers though...let us find the bugs. Thanks for making the support for players and end users a friggin afterthought. All most of us want to do is roll back to 1.1 if the deed has been done.

Scratch my prior suggestion for offline mode. Steam will STILL update it's games while offline. How's that for a brain teaser - offline, and yet online at the same time.

I think the only way to really shoot this one in the back is to block Steam at the firewall.

Thanks for the tip. I had this hidden update problem before, and I'd like to choose when to update on my own time.

So far I have added Steam.exe to my firewall. Does anyone know if it uses any other processes for connection?

Luckily I heard about the patch before I logged into Skyrim today. The simplest way I found to get into offline mode if (I wasn't offline previously) is to go into my firewall and block steam (and keep it blocked). Then start the game... it will try to connect and then say it has no connection. Choose to play in offline mode, and don't unblock steam in your firewall until the patch is all fixed up. That way it can't update even if it wanted to.

EDIT: resolve it has 2 other connections, I think for the steam ingame overlay, and another I can't recall right now. I disabled all 3 and everything is working fine.

Thanks mikea117, I'll go ahead and block them all for now.

Thanks mikea.
I wonder where does the buck stop with this one.. Will it be the Lead QA or Lead Developer or just us consumers. Maybe we all shouldn't wish for a Creation Kit so soon due to all the problems..