Greg

You don't really gain any benefit from unpacking the BSAs in terms of speed or conflict resolution. If you are manually installing mods or using Nexus Mod Manager to install mods, the loose files always have precedence over files stored in BSAs. Mod Organizer is more intelligent so it allows the scripts, meshes, textures, etc. in the last mod (in the left pane) to win the conflict regardless of whether this is a loose file or a file stored in a BSA.

Make sure you are using the latest version of Mod Organizer and LOOT. Mod Organizer 1.2.18 doesn't parse the Unofficial Skyrim Patch properly and mistakenly moves it below the other DLCs. This was fixed in Mod Organizer 1.3.x currently on Nexus. The downside is that Mod Organizer 1.3.x doesn't work on Windows XP, so you'll need to use an older version of the Unofficial Patches if you are using Windows XP. You can ignore the warnings about the mods being out of order in the right pane if you have the mod in the order recommend in the STEP 2.2.9.1 guide. The issue is that Mod Organizer recommends certain mods in the left pane to be pretty much in the same order as in the right pane so the correct scripts are used by the game. This shouldn't be an issue with the mods in the STEP 2.2.9.1 guide so you can leave the mods in the left pane as they are.

Yes, you can copy the Mod Organizer folder in its entirety to some other location and use this as a backup. I do this after making changes t o a profile so I have good backup copy in case something happens and it generally works well. You can also do this to quickly get Mod Organizer up and running on a new computer if you upgrade at some point (so you don't have to setup all those profiles from scratch).

Move the noted esps to the bottom of the right pane in Mod Organizer before you run Wrye Bash. The reason you need to do this is because all the mods that are to be merged must be next to each other so it's easier to just move them to bottom.

I've never seen LOOT sort Dragonborn before Dawnguard and it shouldn't do so unless perhaps you have a misplaced rule that alters the priority or have a "load before" rule in place. The order in the guide is correct.

This is a known issue with the Skyrim Launcher, but you shouldn't be running Skyrim this way. Instead, you should run Mod Organizer and have Mod Organizer run skse_loader.exe to run Skyrim. The only time you run Skyrim Launcher is during the initial setup to set the resolution and graphics quality.

You can safely put each ini section in any order you want. Additionally, the settings in each section can also be in any order you want. Just make sure you don't mistakenly move a setting from one section to another section.

EssArrBee has a version of the core and extended patches that do not include ELE that you can download from GitHub. Click the appropriate version of the patch you need then click View Rar on the subsequent page that comes up and select Save As to save it to disk.

I find it rather curious that FNIS works after move the Mod Organizer folder somewhere else, but I suspect it likely is due to permissions given that Mod Organier and the mods are installed in C:\Program Files. When FNIS runs it creates several temp files in the same folder as GenerateFNISForUsers.exe and then moves the files to the target directory so they end up in Mod Organizer's Overwrite folder. For what it's worth, I keep Mod Organizer and other Skyrim-related applications installed in folders owned by me outside C:\Program Files so permissions aren't an issue.

Mod Organizer's virtual file system isn't really a file system per se. It's more that Mod Organizer hooks various Windows API functions so it can redirect applications trying to open say C:\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Skyrim\Data\Foobar.esp to actually open C:\ModOrganizer\mods\Foobar 3.1\Foobar.esp. This is perhaps somewhat of a simplistic view of how it works, but it should be sufficient to get the idea across. If you need to calculate the size for some unknown reason, right click the ModOrganizer\mods folder and select properties, then right click Skyrim\Data and select properties. Now add both together to get a rough estimate. Another option might be to run a 32-bit command prompt (or some 32-bit Explorer clone) from Mod Organizer and get the size of the Skyrim\Data folder and all subfolders (this includes all the vanilla mods and DLCs). Note that 64-bit applications won't see the virtual file system when run from Mod Organizer.

Can you explain how you fixed the problem for the benefit of others that may experience this same issue?

If you installed a legal copy of Skyrim via Steam, you need to run Skyrim Launcher (Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim\SkyrimLauncher.exe) once from the desktop so it can set up the registry and create the INI files. After you've run Skyrim Launcher, you can now run Mod Organizer and then run FNIS from within Mod Organizer. If you still get the above message after running Skyrim Launcher, FNIS is saying it thinks you have a pirated copy of Skyrim and refuses to work.

You need to download and install the Patcher Hotfix (in the Updates section) from the Dual Sheath Redux page.

I think Hodilton's video demonstrates just how bad the vanilla honey pot is in comparison with this one. I never really paid attention to it before, the difference is astronomical in this video.

If you are running Windows XP, you're stuck with Mod Organizer 1.2.18 and must use an older version of the Unofficial Skyrim Patches. If you're running Windows Vista or later, upgrade to the latest version of Mod Organizer (1.3.11) and Loot to solve this issue. The issue is that a recent version of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch has a record that old versions of Mod Organizer can't read properly so it gets confused and stuffs it below the DLCs. Unfortunately, this happened right after Mod Organizer dropped support for Windows XP so users on Windows XP can't use the latest versions of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.

Make sure your anti-virus software isn't interfering. It's trying to use the C:\Windows\Temp folder, which seems a bit odd because this folder is typically locked down to the system and administrators. It's not necessary or recommended to run Mod Organizer or Skyrim as an administrator so make sure your TEMP and TMP environment variables are pointing the correct Temp folder (usually something like C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp) or that you have full access permission to C:\Windows\Temp. You might also check (in Mod Organizer) Settings, click the Plugins tab, select Fomod Installer in the list, and make sure enabled and prefer are both set to true. This may not have anything to do with this issue, but it doesn't hurt to check to make sure it isn't disabled.

The original thread is here if you want to merge this thread into it.

Does this mean you had to increase the DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB setting in SKSE.ini to solve the issue? The reason I ask is because Memory Blocks Log just logs how much of block 1 (DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB) and block 2 (ScrapHeapSizeMB) are actively being used. It doesn't do anything else.

This reminds of the honey pot in Winnie the Pooh (for those of you old enough to remember such things) and it's making me hungry.

These are completely different issues. If you are using Nexus Mod Manager or manually install mods, loose files always have priority over files stored in a BSA, so the only problem extracting Skyrim - Meshses.bsa will solve is overwriting a corrupt mesh installed by some other mod or reverting the texture path back to the vanilla texture to fix a corrupt texture installed by some other mod. Ah.. glad to hear you figured out the issue with this overpowered NPC. As for the double Skyrim installs, you don't need them if you use Mod Organizer. I tend to think of Nexus Mod Manager as more of an automated mod installer since it doesn't really have much management capabilities at all. The advantage of using Mod Organizer is that the Skyrim folders remain almost pristine (with the only exception being the SKSE and ENBoost binaries. All mods are installed outside the Skyrim folder structure and it's trivially easy to switch profiles (and save games) with one click. I have a vanilla profile, a STEP Extended profile, a custom profile, and a test profile that so I can switch to any of them with one click without having to touch anything in the Skyrim folder.

Use Windows Explorer to browse to your Mod Organizer folder and double click (run) nxmhandler.exe. This opens the NXM Handler application. Select the appropriate games/binary from the list (in case you have more than one) and click Register active. This registers the NXM handler in the Windows registry so Firefox can find it. Now run Firefox and try to download a mod using the Download with manager button. This time you should be prompted to select Mod Organizer. Unfortunately, this step is very easy to overlook because you only do it once and forget it.

I made some minor corrections to both pages. Can you clarify what you mean in this step? If you didn't get any errors, right click the merge/Build mergeI'm assuming you mean right click on the merged mod?

Definitely install and enable Memory Blocks Log and run through the game until it crashes. This should give you a good indication of whether you need to bump the block 1 allocation. Modding and playing are contradictory endeavors... you can do one or the other, but not both.

Have you tried extracting the files with 7zip (it can extract zip, 7z, and rar files) or similar to see if the archive is good? Looking at the path of the file it's trying to extract, it looks as if it may be corrupt unless "GoldBarrel01?nif" is a typo.

Mod Organizer uses the Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini files stored in the ModOrganizer\Profiles\[profile] folder. Also note that mods can also provide tweaks (or override) settings in plugin.ini files (where plugin is the same name as the esm or esp file). The INI files in the Skyrim folder are used only when you run Skyrim Launcher to set the resolution and graphics quality. In other words, these are the base defaults settings that are copied to your user profile folder (usually C:\Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Skyrim).