What does "purge mods" actually do?

[folgore62]

A manual install of a mod for Skyrim went bad. I felt there was no way to undo the damage done, so I decided to do a clean reinstall. On Vortex, I hit "purge mods" figuring it would disable all enabled mods. After running the purge command, I noticed no change in the mod window. I went ahead and uninstalled skyrim then reinstalled skyrim. I run Vortex and it still shows all the mods I downloaded as "enabled."

 

So did the purge command work properly? What did it actually do because there was no change on the mod screen? Okay I just checked plugins and all of them are gone. So I assume all mods still present are those without plugins? Is there any way to disable all of them at one time so that I can reinstall or enable in the order I desire?

[SkunkMonkey]

The Purge command removes all files installed by Vortex in the game directory. This is the opposite of the Deploy command which installs all your enabled mods.

 

As for enabling/disabling all mods at one time, the Mods list is a standard Windows list control. You can use CTRL-A to select all files as well as using the SHIFT and CTRL modifiers for selecting/deselecting individual or groups of mods.

[folgore62]

The Purge command removes all files installed by Vortex in the game directory. This is the opposite of the Deploy command which installs all your enabled mods.

 

As for enabling/disabling all mods at one time, the Mods list is a standard Windows list control. You can use CTRL-A to select all files as well as using the SHIFT and CTRL modifiers for selecting/deselecting individual or groups of mods.

Thanks! I figured there had to be a better way to disable all the mods at once rather than one at a time! I'll have to go looking for more Vortex tutorials. The four Gopher vids are nice but very general. Hopefully, he and others will come out with more detail oriented vids.

[MalicN7]

funny thing is i tried the same thing to try and change fix some problems some mods would not install fully. after clicking the purge icon more mods dont work at all. they will show up in the files but not in game. one mod realistic waters two will now show up but it shows up in and wen i hit deploy it will not finish deploying.

[HadToRegister]

 

 

 

 

 

[divotdog]

basically if you want to have a fresh start with mods purge them. it deletes all the things vortex installed. (I was miss informed ignore this its not right)

Edited May 12, 2020 by divotdog

[HadToRegister]

basically if you want to have a fresh start with mods purge them. it deletes all the things vortex installed.

 

No, it doesn't.

Stop spreading misinformation.

 

It does exactly what I showed in my diagram, it leaves the mods INSTALLED inside THE MOD STAGING FOLDER, all it does is removes the HARDLINKS from the MODS that are STILL INSTALLED IN THE MOD STAGING FOLDER, to the Game Data folder.

 

 

Mods are STILL INSTALLED, Hardlinks are removed.

Once you hit Deploy All, the Mods, that are still installed in the Mod Staging Folder, will have their hardlinks restored to the Game\Data folder

[Tannin42]

If you want an image, imagine an overhead projector: The base game is a page always on it. Now what Vortex does when you install mods is the equivalent of creating/printing an overlay with all your modifications.

"Deploying" is the act of putting that mod overlay on top of the projector, "purge" is removing the overlay from the projector. The overlay still exists, it's just not applied to your projection until you deploy it again.

 

This is different from manually installing mods which is effectively drawing directly on the base page.

[MalicN7]

thanks for the info i did manage to fix some things by going to the saved gave icon in vortex and clicked restore saved game plugins it fixed most of my problems only one im having now is some mods take a few installs before working in game.

[Monkinsane]

thanks for the info i did manage to fix some things by going to the saved gave icon in vortex and clicked restore saved game plugins it fixed most of my problems only one im having now is some mods take a few installs before working in game.

 

Might I suggest switching to Wrye BASH? Switched recently from Vortex to Wrye, and all my little niggly problems in -game went away.