I received a disc copy of Skyrim Legendary Edition as a birthday gift a few days ago, and have met the conditions to trigger the DLC content (according to several Google searches), but the content does not show up. I have the proper .bsa and .esm files in the game files (again according to Google), but the "Data Files" option on the launcher menu is grayed out, if that helps matters. I have uninstalled, reinstalled, started new characters and met and re-met the conditions several times with no improvement.

Have steam verify your files - only thing I can come up with.

its a disc copy, not a steam copy

You can't play the game without steam. All that should be happening from the disc is *maybe* some installing. You HAVE to have steam loaded to play. You'll probably have to "buy" the base game and the DLCs in order to have verified copies through steam.

ah ok gotcha, verifying now

Yeah, it's not exactly intuitive - I mean, Oblivion and prior games you could just poke in the disc, install and play. Not so with Skyrim. I personally have never been happy that Skyrim requires steam.... but the game is - well.... it's worth it.

Mostly.

Steam says all the files are good, restarted the game, not only are the DLC still not work but now controls are locked up

Well.... gosh, I don't know then. Maybe check the steam forums?

yeah i usually bypass Steam by launching from in the files since Steam doesnt like to play nice

Steam Forums was the first place I looked, all I got was "Game's not on your list, OMG PIRATE HAXXOR LOLZ"

Solved the control lockup by bypassing Steam again, but still cant find DLC content

Well, I don't play with steam online, but I wouldn't know how to bypass steam altogether. And maybe that's the problem. I'm sorry, I don't seem to have enough info to help you. Perhaps someone else will be along later who can provide more info.

But - my guess is, if you haven't paid for the DLCs through steam, well.... you're not going to be able to play them.

Fixed it! The SkyrimPrefs.ini file was missing a line, plugged it in and the "data files" button started working and now the dlcs show up

Huh. I've never had to mess with anything in there - but it's good you got it working! Happy adventuring!