I pinned the Skyrim Launcher icon to my taskbar so I can quickly launch the game and this has always worked just fine, opening the Launcher without issue.

However, ever since the latest Skyrim update, this no longer works. I click it and get a "Skyrim has failed to open (error code 86)" message. Sometimes it's a HEX string instead.

Does anyone know how to fix this? I can still launch the game just fine by clicking "Play" in my steam library, but I'd love to get the shortcut working again as it's, well, shorter.

I've verified files and checked everything I could think of with no luck. Also I don't want to use NMM or any alternate programs as they have too much overhead. I want to click and go. (Or in the case of the vanilla launcher, a quick 2 clicks and I go)

Thanks!

Remove the shortcut and place a new one.

Definitely tried that. No dice.

BTW the other error I get is "Application load error V:0000065432"

Oh interesting. I went into the files themselves and trying to launch SkyrimLauncher.exe produces the error. But launching TESV.exe causes steam to force open the launcher, and no error. Thusly I've just pinned TESV.exe to my taskbar, which works fine.

Concerning that Skyrimlauncher.exe directly doesn't work anymore though.

I think you need to re do a verify game cache in Steam. Either the one you already did didn't work or didn't complete.