HOWTO: Set Tuxborn Skyrim modpack to save to Steam Cloud in Windows

This is the third of three posts I’m putting up for the benefit of players using the Tuxborn Skyrim modpack, to solve an issue Tuxborn does not allow by default: making Tuxborn save its games to the Steam Cloud, as regular Skyrim does.

This is fortunately pretty easy to fix in Windows. And as with playing on the Deck, you should do this procedure after you have a working Tuxborn install. I’m likewise assuming you already have a working regular Skyrim install in your Windows.

Important caveat!

I do not have a functional Tuxborn install on Windows. I do not have a dedicated PC laptop for gaming; my only available PC laptop is a potato and is not currently running Windows, it’s set up with Linux. So my only available Windows is a VM on a MacBook M1 Pro. This means that my Windows is a Windows ARM build, and Mod Organizer 2 does not work on that version of Windows. So I can’t properly run Tuxborn in this VM, I play on Steam Deck instead.

So while I do have a Tuxborn install in this VM, I cannot fully verify these instructions. However, user “Knight Guy” on the Tuxborn Discord, who has a working install on Windows, has looked over these instructions and confirmed they look reasoanable. Knight Guy also confirmed for me a way to do this procedure from the Windows CMD window as well as PowerShell, so I’ll be putting up a separate post covering how to do that.

Now, with that caveat in mind, here’s what I suggest you do.

Information you need to start

As with playing on the Deck, you will need to do this know two pieces of information:

1. Where your regular Skyrim saves its games
2. Where your Tuxborn saves its games

While I play on my Deck, I tried a setup of Tuxborn in a Windows VM first, and so I’m basing my instructions off of that. Note also that my Windows VM runs Windows 11. If you run Windows 10, this procedure should not be significantly different for you.

I’m going to focus on instructions for how to do this using Explorer, but will put up another post soon about how to do it via command line. I don’t want to mix and match instructions in this post.

On my Windows VM, my Skyrim saves live in this path:

C:\Users\annathepiper\Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\Saves

You will probably have a very similar path, depending on where exactly you installed your Skyrim. Assuming you did a default install and didn’t do any custom changes, you’d simply want to replace the “annathepiper” part of my path (highlighted in blue) with your own Windows username.

I can’t actually use the Tuxborn install I tried in my VM, since the VM doesn’t like Mod Organizer 2. But assuming I could use it, then the path to the saves I’d use would be this one:

C:\Games\Tuxborn\profiles\Tuxborn - Desktop\saves

The part I’ve highlighted in blue is the profile I would likely have chosen in my VM if I could have actually gotten Tuxborn to work. You should replace that part of this path with the profile you select.

Adjusting Tuxborn’s save location in Explorer

Here’s what you do to adjust where Tuxborn puts its saves, using Explorer.

1. Navigate to where your regular Skyrim saves are installed.
2. In Explorer’s address bar, you should see “Saves” at the end of the directory path shown on the bar.
3. Right-click on “Saves”, this should give you a menu.
4. Select “Copy address as text”.

Here’s a screenshot of what the menu should look like:

5. (OPTIONAL) If you ever want to get quickly right back to your Skyrim saves directory, then right-click on “Skyrim Special Edition” in the sidebar on the left. You should get a menu that has “Pin to Quick Access” as its third option. Select that, and now you’ll have that entire directory pinned permanently in your Explorer!
6. Now navigate to the directory for your Tuxborn profile.
7. (OPTIONAL) If you already have a saves directory there, and if it already has data in it that you want to keep, you should rename that directory to something else. Select it, and hit your F2 key to rename it. It doesn’t matter what you call it, as long as it’s not “saves”.
8. Anywhere in the directory that isn’t directly on top of a subdirectory or file, right-click.
9. You should get a menu that includes a “New” option. Hover your pointer over “New”, and you should get a submenu that includes “Shortcut”. That’s what you want.

Here’s what the Shortcut menu should look like:

5. Click on the “Shortcut” option.
6. You should get a little wizard to run that will set up the shortcut for you.
7. The first screen of this wizard will have a text field where you’ll want to enter the Skyrim saves location you copied in previous steps. Right-click on that field and click Paste.

Your wizard should now look something like this:

8. Hit the Next button to continue.
9. Fill in the name you want for the shortcut. It defaults to “Saves”.
10. Click the Finish button to finish.
11. (OPTIONAL) If you had previous Tuxborn saves that you want to send out to the Steam Cloud, you should now click into your now-renamed original saves directory. Select everything in that directory and copy it. Then navigate over to the Shortcut you just created, and paste everything into that directory.

Testing your changes

I would advocate you test your changes regardless–but especially do so given that I personally cannot confirm this works, since I don’t have a working PC Tuxborn install. Here’s what you should do to test your changes:

1. Launch your regular Skyrim, not the Tuxborn one.
2. Once Skyrim loads, on the main menu, select “Load”.
3. See what saves you have available and confirm everything looks good. If you had previous regular Skyrim saves, you should still see them all. If you had previous Tuxborn data you pasted into the Skyrim saves directory, you should also now see those saves here.
4. Close Skyrim.
5. Now launch your Tuxborn and wait for however many minutes you need for Tuxborn Skyrim to fully launch.
6. Once you see the main menu, again, select “Load”.
7. You should see the exact same saves as in step 3: your regular Skyrim saves, and any Tuxborn saves you had already.

That should be everything. Obviously, you do not want to launch your Tuxborn saves in regular Skyrim, or your regular Skyrim saves in Tuxborn. But now your Tuxborn saves should be making it out to the Steam Cloud.

Any questions, let me know. You can drop me a comment here, or find me on the Tuxborn Discord!

Editing to add

• 12/26/2024: User “Knight Guy” on the Tuxborn Discord tells me that there is a command you can use in both the original Windows command window as well as the PowerShell. I will be putting up a separate post covering how to this, therefore, from the Windows command line! Keep an eye out for that post. For now, I will note here that the syntax you want is: mklink /J