2.2.7 installation 1.E to 1.F

[stepwanw]

Greets to the Forum,

 

I am new to Skyrim and to Sk-mods but wish to take advantage of game enhancement à la STEP for a first run. I therefore began to 'study' the 2.2.7 guide and followed it up to 1.F. but ran into some problems. Considering that in particular under 1.E. (Utilities) the baseline for further modding is set (and therefore mistakes there might have a wider reach) I decided to start over - reloaded vanilla saves to 'My Games' and 'Steam#....#Skyrim' and hope for some little extra-support from you guys, starting from Step 2.2.7. 1.E - Install Utilities

 

1.E.1 - BOSS

1.E.2 - Boss Userlist Manager

1.E.3 - ... in my case: MOD Organizer [requires Python 2.7.5 32-bit for installation]

1.E.4 - TES5Edit

--- and additionally, to jump from here to 2.C (Extenders) - SKSE

 

-ok, having downloaded these is one thing. Installation and choice of directories has been difficult, however. Here's why:

 

1.E.1 - it took quite some time to find out that BOSS needed to be installed into the 'Skyrim' base directory (in 'Steam...') for BOSS to be detected by MOD Organizer later on. This info was indeed rare. Now from that it seemed likely that TES5Edit and SKSE also had to be installed in that Skyrim base directory as eventually they were supposed to be executed by MO as well. Yet, having done that and checked for executables in MO, MO didn't find them automatically as it did with BOSS and - according to Guide: https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Mod_Organizer#tab=Third_Party_Programs - was supposed to with these other third party programmes as well. From here on - whithout continuing to enter the directory-paths manually in MO - I realized that directory-relations are a somewhat sensitive issue to the process and wanted to know about your setup:

Where do you install BOSS, BOSS Userlist Manager (!), MO, TES5Edit and SKSE ? Does Python require a distinct/related directory as well? - That's the question regarding 1.E.

 

Regarding 1.F.: A minor issue arose with the Ini-Tweaking under 1.F. - I used MO [Edit Ini] to modify the Inis according to description - except intro-entry.. hope that will have no csqu. later on -. I saved both of the modified inis and set the ini-files to read only in 'My Games'. However, I realized that also in the Skyrim base directory two ini-Files were to be found one 'Skyrim_default.ini', the other 'SkyrimPrefs.ini' in the subfolder 'Skyrim' to the base-directory. Are these also to be set as 'read-only' or do they share features with the ini-Files in 'My Games' ? (SkyrimPrefs.ini' being the same file-title here as there..)

 

Thank you for sharing your experience in this. Any advice would be much appreciated,

[stepwanw]

Some light was shed on the minor 1.F issue: - Ini-Tweaking via MO [Edit Ini] by reading the following under ... https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Mod_Organizer#tab=Profiles_2

Below header: Editing Ini Settings

"MO takes copy of skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini [!] at the time a profile is created [!] and then uses these copies when launching Skyrim via MO."

 

In the Step 2.2.7 installation guide it reads: https://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.7

 

"The Skyrim INI files are located in "Documents/My Games/Skyrim" or "My Documents/My Games/Skyrim," depending on Operating System. At this point, the default INI files should have been established due to actions completed in step 1.B, and the following tweaks assume that the Skyrim INI files are not already customized in any way. If using Mod Organizer, editing INI files is done by clicking [Edit Ini]."

 

Addition to that: MO-[Edit Ini] is only effecting the MO-Skyrim-game if a profile in MO was previously created. Otherwise the [Edit Ini] changes have no effect. (Such with me).

When thus using MO to edit Ini-Files and (according to the MO Guide) - "Each profile has its OWN ini files! If you copy a profile, the ini files are also copied from the original profile, otherwise they are copies of the original files at the time the profile is created" -

is seems redundant to mark the *My Games* ini-files as read-only with MO in use. Because MO uses (acc. to 2.2.7 routine) an early copy of the original-ini-files throughout. And this copy is not tackled by changes to the original ini-files via steam or likewise. -- so far --

But then it reads (MO Guide:) "You can use the Skyrim launcher or any ini editor found on the nexus to modify the profile ini files provided you start them from within MO!"

Now the MO-ini-files seem to be open to change by i.e. Skyrim launcher if used in MO according to that....

so I wonder whether the notice in the step 2.2.7. routine/1.F., which reads:

"Changing settings in the Skyrim Launcher can undo some of the below INI tweaks. To avoid this, make sure to set the INI files as "read only" when all the tweaks are in place."

holds for MO-ini-files in a special way? Does one need to secure ini-files inside MO profile-directories (if there are such) as read-only? -so far -