Steam – Skyrim Shift-Tab Bug

steamthe-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim

I've had multiple times that shift tab isn't working.
This time, the game had to load for a long time, so after five minutes of staring at a spriggan, I decided to use shift-tab to spend my time looking at the steam thing.
I never had been able to actually click anything, but this time my cursor didn't appear at all. I started randomly clicking and moving my mouse and the spriggan in the background moved happily along. My cursor was still in the loading screen, but I was at the steam thing. After trying googling and trying everything I knew, I turned it off.
Not gonna do that again, but why can't I use the steam community?

Best Answer

This is a bug that, at least for me, has always occurred at all loading screens for Skyrim, even with One Tweak. Shift-tab appears to open the Steam Overlay, however it only loads the image of the overlay and doesn't completely initialise, So Shift-tab won't shut it, and holding in the mouse and moving it rotates the model (if any) at the loading screen.

This problem corrects itself as soon as the loading is complete; the overlay completely loads, allowing me to navigate and click on things, and Shift-Tab to shut it. The focus changes completely, and the game pauses in the background, which it normally does when the overlay is opened.

As far as I know, there is no fix for this, and it shouldn't matter in the long run as it only lasts as long as the loading screen is active. Speaking of that loading screen, minimal loading times are best achieved by minimal activity on the rest of the computer, so at least load your save file initially with little background activity and wait a bit if you have just booted up your device. Probably an obvious fix, but just a reminder in case.

Run as Administrator

First, completely exit Steam, and right-click on the shortcut which you use to launch Steam and select "Run as Administrator." This step may be enough to fix the problem. If not, continue below:

Additional Installers

You may need to manually run secondary installers required by this game. Exit Steam entirely. Browse to your Grand Theft Auto 4 installation folder (Usually C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\grand theft auto iv\)

You will need to run each of the following installers:

...\steamapps\common\grand theft auto iv\Installers\DirectX_jun2008\DXSETUP
...\steamapps\common\grand theft auto iv\Installers\DirectX_Mar2009\DXSETUP
...\steamapps\common\grand theft auto iv\Installers\vcredist_x86

Games for Windows Live

Also, install the latest version of the Games For Windows Live software, which can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/Live/Pages/livemarketplace.aspx

Restart your computer and test the issue again. If you continue to have difficulty, run this installer:

...\steamapps\common\grand theft auto iv\GTAIV\Activation\SteamActivation

References

Taken from this steam forum post. In addition, there is another thread of a huge list of GTA IV steam issues which you can find here.

Steam – How to get Steam to recognize existing game files from a different source

I think the following is the correct way to currently do what I wanted:

Ensure that Steam thinks the game is not installed. Close Steam just to be sure.
Copy the game files to SteamApps\common\<game_name>, where <game_name> is to be found out via googling/equivalent. In my specific instance, this was Batman Arkham City GOTY.
Launch Steam and install the game. The installation will go through a "Discovering existing files for _" stage.
Watch and wait as it downloads only the missing parts.

I still have to download 9.8 GB though (instead of 17) in my specific case.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Steam – GTA IV will not start

Run as Administrator

Additional Installers

Games for Windows Live

References

Steam – How to get Steam to recognize existing game files from a different source

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