I'm considering a complete wipe to my Skyrim game (every single file) but I'm not entirely sure how I need to do this. If I uninstall it from Steam what do I need to do about all the mods, SKSE, etc.? I've looked on YouTube but can't find any tutorials. The reason I'm considering a wipe is because I've altered some .ini files (which I should not have) and don't remember what I changed and I want to go back to the original files. This may be a bit extreme (I know) because I'm not currently experiencing any CTD's, but I'm worried that there will be some instability somewhere and I won't notice it until I've invested a tremendous amount of time into a character.

Any help is appreciated.

This may help: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1381322-want-to-do-a-proper-uninstallreinstall/

What you can do is:

1. Verify the integrity of the game cache.
Open Steam > Go to Library > Right click on Skyrim > Properties > Verify Integrity of Game Cache

2. Delete your Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini (back them up somewhere else first) Then repeat the cache verification. If you made any edits do your ini you will loss them.

3. You can copy your 'data' folder, and place it somewhere else, then delete everything in your skyrim folder, and run the cache verification again (this time it could take upwards of 5-6 hours unless you have a really fast internet connection).

If you use SKSE or any ENBs, you will need to reinstall them. After steam finishes, replace your DATA folder in the skyrim folder making sure to say NO when it asks you to replace any of the skyrim/DLC files

(Skyrim.esm, Dragonborn.bsa, Meshes.bsa, etc)

Actually if you don't know what .ini file you have altered, i wouldn't go for the last part as there is a good chance you could mess up something worse, and just end up waiting hours for nothing.

What does verifying the integrity of the games cache do?

Verify should be the last step in the process as it makes sure all the correct files exist.

As deaths_soul say it makes sure that all the correct files exist...but you haven't any problems so far anyway.

Do you have any NMM manager installed ???

I assume you have checked your load order with BOSS, and cleaned your mode's. !!!!

Probably you have altered your skyrim and skyrimPrefs.ini files (?!?)

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What you can do:

1. Use Steam to make a back up of Skyrim. AFAIK, Steam will only include original files in the back up.

2. Uninstall Skyrim using Steam and then navigate to the /common/Skyrim folder and check all Skyrim files and folders are gone.

3. Make a copy of the NMM install info folder and your mod directory.

4. Uninstall BOSS, Wyre Bash, NMM and any other Skyrim related application installed.

5. Delete the whole /common/Skyrim directory.

6. Reinstall Skyrim from your Steam Back up.

7. Navigate to the Skyrim install folder to see if there are any folders/files that don't seem vanilla.

8. If you find any stray files, any weird folders or anything that doesn't seem vanilla - delete local files and the back up you made and re-download Skyrim from Steam, verify files.

9. If it checks out, then install NMM (replacing the install info folder with the one you backed up), BOSS, etc.

10. Use NMM to reinstall your mods.

New version of NMM has an "Uninstall all mods" option, so that will clear everything out and show them as uninstalled.

It will just make it so you can re-install them again once you've cleared out your skyrim folder for whatever reason you want. (I assume you have your mod zip files)

You only need to verify once and at the very end. Doing it before is pretty much useless if you're just going to purge everything anyways. You do it at the end to make sure it installed correctly.

CHANGED. !!! (Thanks for the recommendation)