How can I get the Steam overlay on Skyrim, if I am using the SKSE.exe to launch the game?

Solution 1:

On the bottom left of steam there is a button that says 'Add a game' simply click that, select 'none Steam game' and find the 'SKSE.exe' which should be in your root Skyrim directory. Name it whatever you'd like, doesn't matter. When you launch it via Steam it will start Skyrim using SKSE. However all the steam stats will be added to the official Skyrim game in Steam. So everything works as it should!

Solution 2:

If you rename the skse_loader.exe to SkyrimLauncher.exe, Steam will pick it up and think it is the actual executable of the game.

This is beneficial over simply using the "Add a non-steam game" method, as achievements and other community features (such as screenshots being tied to the correct game) will work as well.

I made a write up of how to set this up for Fallout 3/New Vegas, but the same steps work for Skyrim as well. To summarise:

• Change the SkyrimLauncher.exe file to be a different name, such as SkyrimLauncher-orig.exe (in case you want/need to revert).
• Create a copy of the skse_loader.exe file, and rename it to SkyrimLauncher.exe
• Click Play in Steam. It should launch the game with SKSE.