Hi everyone,

I know this isn't a typical mod question, but I have a couple questions about keeping my Skyrim mods when I install a new OS.

I recently bought a new SSD, and I think I'll reinstall Windows 7 on it and then upgrade to WIndows 10. I have a ton of Skyrim mods installed through Mod Organizer as well as in the Skyrim directory manually.

I really don't want to lose this modlist. I know that Mod Organizer stores mods in the My Documents folder, so could those at least be preserved when I reinstall Windows? I guess I will probably lose the manually installed mods?

If anyone has a better idea of how to go about this, please let me know.

Thank you!

Make a backup of the mod packages before wiping your drive. Since they are archive files, the OS will treat them like any other data file and they can be copied back after the OS upgrade and reinstallation of Skyrim and its DLCs. Depending on how many you have, it can save you many hours of download time. This is especially true for the mods that you manually installed. For Mod Organizer, you should be able to just make a copy of its downloads folder (\ModOrganizer\downloads - it shouldn't be in your Documents folder unless that's where you installed Mod Organizer) and then drop it back in after reinstalling, but you'll need to go through all of the "double-click to install" stuff again. TES5Edit could probably just be dropped back it in, but both it and LOOT are pretty dinky downloads, so it would easier/safer to just download them again.

Thanks for the answer. Yes, it looks like I have MO installed in my Documents folder for some reason. I was planning to backup my entire Documents folder when I reinstall Windows and then just put it back. Would this preserve all my mods and eliminate the need to reinstall them?

The mods that are stored in the Mod Organizer \downloads and \mods directories would definitely be preserved. But I'm relatively sure that ModOrganizer makes registry changes (definitely when you use it rather than NMM for those "Download with Manager" links at the Nexus), so just dropping it back in might work, but would not be recommended. It's a dinky download, so just grab it again after reinstalling Skyrim, copy out the download directory, and scrap the rest of its backup once you're sure it's working as it should. I'm not sure about the \mods directory. A lot of the information about what needs to go where, in what order and what should take precedence over something else is stored somewhere in Mod Organizer, but I don't know where or how, so that's another reason to be leery about just dropping it back in. I have Mod Organizer, TES5Edit (you were planning on cleaning all of the DLCs after Steam downloads them again, right?), and LOOT installed in their own folders in the Skyrim directory for ease of access. I'll do the same when I get around to reinstalling New Vegas.