problem installing mods

[RyzaOblivion]

how do you actually do it without obmm

everytime i install a mod it has a mesh file and texture but then when i install a new mod it says do i want to overight the texture and mesh files and if i accept it brakes my mods :(

[Striker879]

I always unzip/rar/7z the download into a location other than my Oblivion directory. Most archives are 7z, which is nice because when you open it the default location is whatever folder you saved the archive to. I also create a folder for each downloaded mod. This makes it easy to examine the new mod's directory structure and check out the files it includes. I can then go over my currently installed Oblivion Data directory (and subdirectories) looking for anything that might be actually overwritten. Most of the time the 'Do you want to overwrite' prompt is only referring to the folders themselves (which by necessity will be named starting at 'Data') and the contents are unique to the mod. In that case no files will be overwritten and you won't have any problem. As you have found, sometimes mods conflict, and the new mod will have files named and located (directory structure wise) identically to a mod you currently have installed. Sometimes the old mod will still work (as in the case of BBBed mesh replacers for example), other times it won't.

 

Bottom line ... by opening the archive and saving to a location other than my Oblivion directory I have control over what files get overwritten. If you read the 'manual installation' instructions for most mods this is also their recommended method. After unzipping and checking things out it's as easy as right click the 'Data' folder in the temporary location, select copy from the menu and then right click my Oblivion folder and select 'paste' from the menu. When I say 'OK' to overwrite I know what's going to happen.