GrantSP

You must have something on your end causing that glitch, there is no need to 'turn on' anything to see the forum text. What is the result when you view the forum in IE or any other browser you have? Do you have any plugins or addons in FireFox that are interfering with the forum text? Lastly, you might also be viewing some very old posts made before a recent software update and some of the formatting code is showing through, but that is only on a very limited number of topics/posts.

Not a problem. Glad you got it all sorted. Kudos @Greg.

Further to what @Greg just said, if we can see the actual file it would make it easier. More eyes on it mean more chance of spotting something. Since the original mod follows a very standard format of fomod, it is probably something very minor and easily missed.

I don't usually make comment on texture replacers because of the subjective nature of the design choice and the overheads are probably beyond my system, but in this instance I will. In my examination of the supplied screenshots I actually think your descriptions highlight the flaws of these sort of mods. Making the bump map more prominent makes the stones in these fine buildings look of an inferior quality. To my mind stones in impressive structures like Winterhold would have been worked by skilled stonemasons that would produce a much finer finish than that which results from the mod. The vanilla stones are more what you should expect. Especially is this so with the floor stones. Winterhold has been around for a long time so floor stones should look LESS bumpy not MORE. With the wall stones, they look less well fitted. The gaps are accentuated and make the seams more prominent. Based on that I would advise against its use in STEP CORE.

@DoubleYou may I make an observation? I think we need to temper the use of the phrase: "empirically verified" and similar. Since the actual source code for the game engine is not available for perusal, there is no way of knowing empirically whether changes made to these settings, in isolation, have any effect but rather do so when changed in conjunction with related settings. That would require making changes to a number of settings that appear to be related (even then we are only guessing based on similarity of names) and even then it would be hard to say which setting was the dependent of the other. I say this not to stifle the excellent resource you are making here, but to make it clear we are not in a position to make definitive assessments.

I notice you have this issue posted in the Bug Genie also, that's good, keep in mind the need to update there with any further relevant information. @Tannin has mentioned in similar issues posted where 'Failed to write:' errors are involved that the most likely cause is outside the code of MO and therefore isn't necessarily an issue. More often than not a reboot releases the file from control of the other program if you are sure that your AV or Firewall software isn't currently in control. I also use a tool called "Unlocker". Perhaps running that tool on the ini may show which program is stopping access and kill it for you.

So can I conclude from this, that in all instances the meshes and textures from IHWT are to be preferred over any other mod? If an elegant way was found to install those assets, IHWT would be used?

Since ModOrganizer is a 'portable' executable, you can simply install another instance of MO in a folder entirely removed from any UAC issues, e.g. "C:\Games\Tools\ModOrganizer" and set the paths to your existing mods, downloads and cache via the 'Settings' dialog. This will mean none of MO's files will be under UAC action and if the problem is removed that is the cause. If the ModOrganizer.ini is still showing as 'write-protected' then an outside program is refusing to relinquish control of that file, perhaps an overly zealous Anti-virus check?

Can you provide the files in question for us to examine?

There was a discussion about MHDT records in this Nexus thread. I remember the @Arthmoor quote being used here in STEP recently.

The OP seems to me to be an entirely different question to what you are now saying is 'fixed'. To me the term "location discovered" relates to a location that you have visited and can now fast travel to, whereas the setting you are changing is actually dealing with locations recognised but NOT YET discovered. ie. these locations show in the compass as triangle outlines and only become whole triangles once you have actually been there. It's the same mechanic as when a NPC gives you a location marker. I thought your opening question was to do with visiting a location and it not showing marked as 'visited'. Isn't what you are describing an issue only in the players mind, in that because you have played the game before you know such and such is there and you want to see it on your map?

@Fore, the creator of FNIS, is very particular about where the generator needs to be run from, the log is showing you that it doesn't recognise your game installation as a valid Steam game. While I won't make assertions on the legitimacy of your game copy, it is clear to me the generator is expecting to find a valid copy of Steam and can't. If you used a hacking method to move your Skyrim install, you may have messed up the registry entries and this will give FNIS the bad info. Or if you are trying to mash together a XBOX version of the game, as I see one user on the Nexus claiming, this too will confuse the generator. Either way you will need to ensure the install is a valid one before FNIS will work.

BCF = 'BAIN Conversion File'. There a leftover from when Wrye Bash was the preferred installer. Since MO is the tool to use now, just disregard them.

This highlighted section is the key I believe. If you can get the FNV4GB patcher to run with a basic install and only a few mods then the issue isn't with either MO or FNV4GB, it is with one of those mods. I would suggest examining your NVSE installation and/or the mods that require it. It could also be a case of the patcher working fine but your systm simply falls under the pressure of too much texture load. If you could post the contents of you 'heavy' profile and you ModOrganizer.ini along with you system specs that might assist us.

The biggest reason why I disable the storms, or will uninstall NS, is because of the jarring change in weather systems on worldspace loads. Moving through New Vegas towards The strip you have to go through a few doors and to step from bright blue skies to a radiation storm, then run to far gate and step again into blue skies is very game-breaking.

Are you sure it isn't driver updates related. Looks like graphical tearing to me.

Location may matter even when you have provided Admin access for your programs. Anecdotally this may be more so the case with Win 8.1 and above. So you CAN install to that location and then take steps to avoid UAC issues or install in any loaction where UAC isn't applied. What is important is that Skyrim is installed and the registry knows its location so that tools can make a registry check correctly. Mod Organizer wiki makes mention of AI and 'back-dating' BSAs. You should always have MO manage your BSAs unless specifically instructed not to. (this should never happen) The order of installing mods in MO is not critical, as they can easily be moved in the left-pane. The order they are presented in the guide(s) is much the same as that from when NMM was used so it matches closely the install order and thus the correct 'conflict-resolution' order. Regarding the various STEPs. Each install will require its own patch but you can make separate profiles, each based off the previous and have differently named patches to match each profile, thus enabling CORE, Extended or 'Other' by changing profiles.

hmm... I'm actually going to back @Arthmoor on this one, although he isn't adverse to changing the rules to suit the team's work. Looking at what is changed it seems very clear to me that all that has happened is the USKP has brought into light a sloppy work'a'round that tools have been using for a while. Clearly nothing is broken, since the game engine has no issue with it. The bug report mentioned above shows as much.

Try these steps.

This is some truly impressive work.

Don't forget all those hectic exercise videos!

Ordinarily I would agree with you on that but when I did a check of this card it actually seems to be much better than I'd expected. Whilst <1Gb VRAM seems low, benchmarks for AAA games are fairly reasonable, albeit at low resolutions.

My post wasn't meant to be a fix for your issue, just a fix for your missing skse.ini.

No, I'm not getting any problems with adding metadata.

One of the good things about MO is there are no 'hidden settings' or registry entries. Everything is just an entry in a set of text files in each 'profile' folder in addition to the ini files for MO itself.