First of all, I know that this has been brought up before. I've looked around on a bunch of different forums, and seen very similar questions asked and answered. However, the solution presented has not availed itself to me. So let me explain real quick.

I'm on Windows 7, and I bought Skyrim on a Steam sale just a little while ago. I just downloaded SKSE for the first time. Downloaded the latest version from the "installer" link. Ran the .exe, and let it create a desktop shortcut. I ran the shortcut, the brief DOS window popped up, and then it skipped straight to the black screen and the Bethesda logo. I tried right-clicking the shortcut and running as administrator. UAC prompted me, I clicked yes, then the same deal. Bethesda logo. I visited the steamapps > common > Skyrim folder, and manually launched the skse_loader.exe (as an administrator) just to cut the shortcut out of it. No dice.

I also tried downloading the .7z version and following the instructions on the readme file for a manual installation. Same deal.

The only real solution I've seen to my problem is to try running SKSE as an administrator, but that's made no difference for me. If someone could point me to an obvious solution and point out my stupidity, I'd be greatly appreciative. I'd love for this to just be something simple and quick to fix.

Again, I apologize for asking the question--it's probably dumb. But thank you in advance to anyone who can help me.

not entirely sure what the problem is here, it goes to the BEthesda logo no matter what......do you mean it CRASHES at the logo?

No no, it loads the game and runs fine, but there's supposed to be another window before the game launches, right? Somewhere to manage mods and such before the game itself launches.

Ummm...this is what is supposed to happen

There is no front end to SKSE. It is a bunch of extra scripts and functions running in the background which give mod authors greater possibilities when used inside their mods.

You'll know if it isn't working when a mod that requires it ceases to function as advertised. Quite a few mods even have built in warning messages they throw up as the game loads, when the mod detects that SKSE is missing (if I remember correctly, SkyUI has this warning mechanism).

The only thing you need to remember with SKSE is to quickly confirm that Steam is running (can be in offline mode) before you double click the shortcut to the SKSE loader

EDIT:

Ah. Then you are looking for a mod manager. The most widely used is Nexus Mod Manager (NMM). This is where you organise your installed mods and set your load order.

Also, while I'm on the subject of load order, have you heard of BOSS? Its a community managed tool which sorts your load order as best as possible, based on a huge database of mods.

So you download and install mods via the nexus site and NMM, then run BOSS to sort your load order. Then you open up NMM, check the load order one last time and correct any errors, then at the top click the little arrow next to the run game button and then select the SKSE loader from the list (this only has to be done the first time, from then on, the main button will now be the SKSE loader)

- Hypno

That is what a script extender does, it goes straight to the executable. If you wanna go to the launcher, launch Skyrim from your library instead of the desktop.

OH, you mean the start up screen before it goes full screen, yeah using SKSE skips that for whatever reason, SKSE is working fine. It's only real use is changing the graphics settings and activating Plugins files for mods and if you use NMM, you can do that in the NMM program, making the launcher basically useless.

Okay, great, so I AM just dumb. Thank you everyone for your quick responses. Let's see if I can get some of this other stuff to work then. >.<

Quick thread. Ninja's all over the place

Check my edit, lays it all out in a nutshell

- Hypno

I see it. Thank you for the tips. I'll see if what I want to run for now works, but if not, I've bookmarked this thread for future reference.