Is there a way to prevent Steam from overwriting my configuration changes when it updates Skyrim?

Steam recently patched Skyrim while I wasn't paying attention. Now my .ini settings have been blown away and my vertical mouse sensitivity is almost 0. I know I can copy my .ini files to a separate backup folder and copy them back, but I'd like to avoid having to do this for each patch.

How can I preserve my .ini files when steam automagically updates a game?

Solution 1:

This may change depending on what game you are talking about, but for Skyrim, there is a user copy of the skyrim and skyrimprefs ini files in: my documents\my games\skyrim

Those user ini files are the same as those in the install folder but have precedence over them, so any modifications you make there should still affect your game, but will not be deleted or overwritten when your game is patched.

For my modifications, I only made changes to my user ini files and those remained even though my game was patched.