Tip for viewing virtual directories and modded INI files.

[DocHammoc]

I had a great idea!  Too bad it didn't work.  Can someone explain why or have other thoughts?

 

So I want to view the directory structure and ini files the games sees when it runs with explorer.exe and notepad.exe.  So why not add explorer.exe as an MO tool!  I should be able then browse the folder structure as TESV.exe sees it (edit files, etc from apps launched from the explorer.exe ..)

 

Not quite.  Explorer.exe did not seem to work.  However notepad.exe and cmd.exe did!

 

That is you can launch cmd.exe from in MO and cd to ..\skyrim\data and view virtual folder and files!

 

Similarly you can call notepad.exe with argument to "..\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\skyrim.ini" and see changes made.

 

HOWEVER:  Only changes made from profiles are seen, not INI Tweaks from mods.  So the skyrim.ini file from "..\Documents\My Games\Skyrim" will be "copied" to "..\Documents\My Games\Skyrim" but INI Tweak from mods my "custom INI tweak" mod is not applied.  I think the tweak does get applied when running TESV.exe however as I can see affect of it in game .. but more testing is needed.

 

Anyone comments appreciated.

[GrantSP]

As the wiki explains, it is not possible to use Windows explorer to view the VFS. There are however other file managers, such as FreeCommander XE, that can be set up to do this.

 

The reason why is explorer is intrinsically linked to the Windows file system and it is not possible to have the VFS viewed in that manner. Whichever file manager is used needs to be 'tricked' into thinking it is viewing the actual file system.

 

Just about any tool can be utilised in this way, as long as it is 32bit. 64bit programs simply cannot be used in the MO VFS.

[mikegray]

I've had a much better experience with the freeware program "File Explorer" than with FreeCommander XE (which was unstable on my machine).