Hi,

i'm curious to learn about your experience with the NMM so far, specifically in terms of reliability and technical issue and if, between the NMM and installing a mod's files manually, which option is better.

Cheers.

Neither. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1334/?tab=2&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D1334&pUp=1

You'll never have to manually install mods again, or even touch the Skyrim data directory again for that matter. It's stores all of your mods in one nice folder, wherever you'd like...and it virtually adapts those mods to your profile that you specify. You can have multiple profiles, one with no mods so that you can easily troubleshoot mods independently...and you can create as many more as you'd like (individual load orders and tweaked INI files etc). You just have to try it, it's 100 times better than physically installing files especially for those of us with a little Skyrim OCD.

Heh, the OCD part made me giggle because it's true.

Good to hear.

All true. I'm using this one as well. Simply magnificent!

Basically any mod manager out there is better than manual. Out of all the mod managers I consider NMM to the be the least.
In fact I only used it for downloading from the Nexus site. Even that is crappy nearly it seems a lot of my downloads are often incomplete. In addition considering they have two full-time developers on application they don't innovate very much. From what I've heard mod organizer has the same features and more as NMM. Personally, I like Wrye Bash, It gives you complete control over the install process in addition allows you to see various overwrite and underwrites, plus much more.

Mod organizer is functionally a replacement for NMM and just as easy to use.

Wrye Bash doesn't have integration with the Nexus site. It is definitely more complex and not as new user-friendly, but it allows you to see what's going on between mods.

God, if only Wrye Bash had a feature like this.

I download and install every mod manually. I don't put my trust in automation in real life and I don't put my trust in automation in software either. Before I install a mod I like to know exactly what files and folders I am putting in my Data folder and exactly where those files and folders are located. If a problem develops I know where every file and folder in my Data folder is located because I put them there myself.

Wow, you must have a lot of knowledge to pull that off. How do you get around restoring files that have been overwritten when you decide to remove a mod. Some can be written over two or three times.

i use nmm to download mods and keep em up to date, but i like the control wrye bash gives me when installing mods. it keeps track of all installed files, and overwrites of files by other mods. and you'll need it anyway for the bashed patch..

i see now that mod organizer does all that, except for the bashed patch, might check that one out..

Wrye bash has a feature like that. Go to the save tab, right click on the header and go to profiles. You can switch between them easily. I personally rotate between three profiles and three very different load orders / mod combo.

I find it amazing that with all your modding experience you never touched wrye bash. It simplifies so many things, installing/removing mods is very neat and you see what can conflict. It's not perfect, but it sure speeds things up.

And it allows you to do exactly the same: You can see which files are installed and into which folders. Bash's installer basically is a specialized file manager.

As I understand it, the Mod Organizer would also switch out replacer mods (i.e. without ESP files), while Bash's save profiles "only" activate/deactivate ESPs. Which is quite enough most of the time, but they're not exactly the same feature.

Aye, I forgot about the replacers, but since I don't use them in Skyrim, it's not a big deal for me.

Me too. I have around 220 - 250 mods active for every character (including texture replacements), and I do them all by hand. I've used BAIN in the past, but I'm too impatient for the CRC checks.

The Mod Organizer looks like a great tool (if it allows you to override mods like BAIN), but IIRC it forces you to dump all of your mod archives (the rar files) into a single directory, and that's too messy for me. I keep all of my downloaded mods in an organized directory structure so I can easily find them later, and it helps for browsing/rediscovering mods that I've forgotten about. I could keep 2 copies of every archive, but that's a lot of disk space.

I still use NMM just because it's simple to use for me I have BASH standalone but other than BASH patches I can't work the thing

I find nmm to work fine for the most part. Only issues it has are with large files, like say crafting 300. I use bash to install those.

Thank you very much kind sir.

I use the NMM and overall I like it, but I think it has some downsides:

1. It takes a VERY long time to load for me.. Skyrim itself is faster to start up and load than the NMM.

2. It keeps asking if you want to update existing mods at inappropriate times. Often when you install a patch or add-on to a mod the NMM asks you if you want to update the mod which can potentially mess up the install instead since it's not actually a new version of the mod you are trying to install. Also I don't really understand the need for this feature.. if you install a newer version it means it will replace existing old files anyway the prompt if you want to update is only confusing.

3. It cannot handle large files well, I'm not sure why this is since all it is supposed to do is unrar the files into a folder

Things I very much enjoy:

* It's easy to get an overview of which mods are up to date and which needs an update

* it's easy to install and uninstall ofcourse, especially good for texture or mesh mods that has no esp

I download manually. I open it up with 7zip to see what's inside and then use NMM to install from my local drive. I've been doing this for the past year without any problem. I like to keep copies of all mods (all different variations and options) I downloaded (some do disappear from Nexus).

I NEVER click on the download(NMM) button. Even when I accidentally do that I abort the download immediately. Even with manual download, not all mod can be installed using NMM, even from local drive. It's a good idea to always peek inside to see how it's structured.

Well BAIN does show all that. Along with what files will conflict, and allows changing install order to resolve those conflicts with ease. And also uninstall all mods with a click of a button.

Though maybe i should learn Mod Organizer since Wrye Bash seems to be in indefinite development limbo

As for NMM, never tried because WB exists For OBMMs and FOMODs i still have Oblivion Mod Manager and Fallout Mod Manager.

I like to install my mods manually (an old custom of mine that refuses dying), unless they've too many options as for doing it that way, in which case I use NMM and the mod menus. I also use NMM to modify and backup my load order, and by now I'm very happy with it

100% recommended, either for light or heavy use.

I've used Wrye and NMM and I am looking at Mod Organizer and it seems to be, in some ways, a hybrid of NMM and Wrye. I think I may ditch NMM for MO.

I'm like that to some extent. Though all I use Wrye Bash for is load order and bashed patch, if I need one and/or a merged patch. I love TES5Edit. (just like FNVEdit, which I'm familiar with).

Everything else I pretty much install manually. Although, since finding how to make a BSA properly I bundle up all large mods into BSA's. Some mods just don't like that, so they're loose. Or if I'm trying out an animation mod, or variant texture of an armor mod. Inside each folder is a backup folder. Nothing overwrites.

I'd use FOMM if I could, but no one has actually detailed how to use it for Skyrim. So, BSA's it is. It looks much neater in my Data folder, too.

Not all of us are new to mods, TES games and/or Beth games. Some of us have been doing it manually for years, since before automated installers/organisers were created. Most of us know what we're doing

I use it to sort out my load order and to receive updates for my mod. A very nifty little tool IMO