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I've installed Skyrim, and I'm playing in windowed mode. I want to be able to alt-tab to interact with IM windows or my browser while I'm auto-running to some distant location, but the game pauses when the window loses focus. Is there some .ini option to prevent this?

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You can try Shift-Tab to use Steam's in-game browser instead. Not sure if this pauses the game though. – Mart Nov 16 '11 at 4:24
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@Mart: It does. – LessPop_MoreFizz Nov 16 '11 at 4:26
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Somebody else must be equally bothered by this. The game provides an auto-move button, but still expects you to sit there with your hands on the keyboard and mouse. Why the hell? – meagar Nov 16 '11 at 14:35
Use a VM or something like a VM? Or make some kind of a hack using the Windows API to block unfocus events? – jli Nov 20 '11 at 20:24
There may be a mod, but I haven't seen one to do what you seek yet. Will check skyrimnexus.com. If there is one, they should havee it. – bkzland Jan 3 '12 at 18:14
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2 Answers

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I come to the conclusion that it is not possible to keep Skyrim running in background.

I've been trying for quite a while and Skyrim just kept pausing when losing focus.

I've even found this question on another site where they claim that it's possible in windowed mode, but I just could not make it work like they say.

I've also searched skyrimnexus.com for a mod that could keep the game from pausing, but could not find anything related to this at all.

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Generally not, but you can still watch video while Skyrim is running in the "background" - run Skyrim in windowed mode (Simple Borderless Window is a good way to achieve fullscreen-style functionality with all the benefits of windowed mode) and have your video player running in always-on-top mode (In MPC-HC, for example, right click inside the player and click on View - On top - Always), you can resize it to cover nearly all of the screen, but you must click on Skyrim to give it back focus. The game will continue to run while you will be enjoying a movie.

In theory, the same trick can be applied to other applications capable of always-on-top mode, but you will need to click on Skyrim after every bit of input to the other program, and few tasks require as little input as watching a video.

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