Hope this is in the right place...

I have a question about NMM. There seem to be a fairly large number of mods that, even though they have recently been updated and can be downloaded with the Nexus Mod Manager (or Mod Organizer), apparently need to be installed manually--files dropped into specific directories, changes made to one or more .ini files, etc.. According tot he descriptions anyway.

I DL'd one of these the other day with NMM and "activated" it with NMM...only I didn't, of course--it wasn't really activated although it said it had been. I needed to DL it manually and install it manually.

So what does NMM do with these files it DL's and how can I activate them?

What mod is telling you you need to manually install it? 99% of mods should be able to be downloaded and installed with NMM, unless the author doesn't know how to package their files up correctly. NMM basically just dumps everything into the Data folder, which is usually what needs to happen.

For those files you need to read the mod authors description about how to install it - Hopefully the mod author has provided instructions if not in the description then maybe in the ReadMe tab

The mod author may not even be aware that the file has a "Download With Manager" button ..

When the Nexus added the feature to the site, it was enabled for every single file across the board.

So if the author has not been back for a while .. His / Her files have gained a new button they are not aware of

Sometimes the author may not realise it could be a problem if they dont use NMM

And it also means that its quite possible to come across an executeable tool ( instead of a mod ) that if the button has been left on, then you could potentially have users installing for instance Mod Organiser with NMM ... As silly as that sounds, I have helped one user with just that problem.

"How do I use Mod Organiser, I installed it with NMM and cant find how to launch it"

In those cases, your skills at manual installation will help you .. But if you have always been dependant upon an easy do it all for you utility .. You need to get back to some basics like understanding where everything should be installed, the more detailled the instructions from the author the better in this regard.