Hello chosen_silver,
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND:
That you download, install, and learn to use... Jonesoft Generic Mod Enabler (JSGME). i have been consider making a thread about JSGME recommending that everyone use it. There are quite a lot of folks that know about it and use it already, and of course there are quite a few that don't.
It's free and can be downloaded here...
http://www.users.on.net/~jscones/software/products.html
I am currently using v1.5.0 but I see there is a newer version available, v2.0.1.
What will JSGME do for you? It will allow to easily enable and disable individual mods, of course, but it does a little more than just that.
When you enable a mod, it automatically backs up any files that the mod overwrites. When you disable the mod, it automatically restores the original files from the backups it made with one mouse click.
It will warn you about possible conflicts. Let say you've installed several mods. Now let's say you've downloaded a new mod you just discovered and you go to install/enable it with JSGME. And when you do, it tells you that there is a possible conflict with another mod that you have previously enabled, due to that fact that the mod you trying to enable right now wants to overwrite files from one of your previously enabled mods. It will show you the name of the possibly conflicting mod and the filenames that both of these mods have in common(the conflicting files).
Now you can examine the filenames in question. If the files in both mods are exactly the same, then there's no worries or problems with enabling the mod(and letting the new mod overwrite the older mod's files). If you find that the files are not exactly the same, you might be able to determine which of the mods contains the latest version of the the file, and then you can allow only the mod with the latest version of the file to install it by deleting the older version file in the mod that contains it. Depending on which mod contains the older version of the file you may need to disable the mod first, then delete the file, then re enable the mod.
Or maybe it's not a version problem but a content problem instead. For example, let's say that a previously enabled mod installed a modified .cfg file, because the author needed to define some extra content in it. Now a newer mod wants to install the exact same .cfg file. It may very well be possible to do something like the following... Open up the .cfg file from the older mod in Notepad. Do the same for the .cfg file from the newer mod. Copy and Paste the defined content from the older mod in into the proper place in the newer mod's .cfg file so that both mods defined content are now in the newer mod's .cfg file. This is known as merging files. Now when you enable the newer mod the content for both mods is contained the newer mod's .cfg file and you can enable the newer mod and allow it to overwrite the older mod's .cfg file.
Now lets' say you decide to disable this new mod. When you do, it restores any files that the new mod had overwritten from the previous/earlier mods backups, so the previous mod will still work with no problem!
Now lets say you decide to disable this previous mod as well. It will then restore any original Orbiter files that this mod had overwritten, because the original files that came with Orbiter were still in JSGME's backups and were
only associated with the disabling of this older mod.
This was a little difficult for me to explain clearly, but I hope my explanation is fairly clear and not too confusing. Is there a learning curve to JSGME? Sure, but I believe it's actually a lot easier than my explanation makes it appear, and you should be able to learn how to use JSGME pretty quickly.
NOTE: Most all Orbiter addons are not made to be unzipped directly into JSGME's MODS folder. Mods must be unzipped into a sub folder(which you create) within the MODS folder. Whatever you name the sub folder will be the name of the mod. I name mine by using the name of the archive(.zip, .rar, etc.) that I downloaded.
In other words... if I download a mod and the filename of the archive is 'DeltaGliderXR1-1.4.zip', then I go into the MODS folder and create a new folder named 'DeltaGliderXR1-1.4', and then unzip the mod into this newly created DeltaGliderXR1-1.4 folder.
All of this is no guarantee. There is still the possibility that mods can conflict with each other, or have bugs that cause problems with Orbiter. But when you use JSGME properly, you can quickly enable and disable mods to try and help determine which mod might be cause a problem.
If you discover that Mod A cannot get along with Mod B, then you can decide which mod you want to play with and leave the other mod disabled. Lets' say that you decided you wanted to play with Mod A and had to leave Mod B disabled, then later on you decide you want to play with Mod B. All you have to do is open up JSGME and disable Mod A and enable Mod B. Something you can do very very quickly with just a few mouse clicks in JSGME, and would take you an eternity to do manually without it.
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Lastly chosen_silver,
Are you reading the documentation that comes with the mods before you install them? There are pretty good number of mods that require you to manually edit .cfg files such as, Sol.cfg, Base.cfg, Earth.cfg, etc. or some other type of operation that needs to be done manually. In these cases I make a backup of the original file by copying it to another folder and adding '.orig' to the file extension, and then moving it back to the original folder(i like to see these files right next to each other in windows explorer). Alternatively you can just drag and drop the file while right-clicking(and holding down on the right-click) into it's current folder which will give you the option to 'Copy here', and then give you a 'Copy of (filename)' file. I normally use my own method unless it involves copying more than five files. If it's more than five files then I use the drag and drop method, but that's just me.
I hope this helps.
Cheers
P.S. I might be using this post to make a new thread about JSGME, probably just a straight copy and paste.
P.S.S streb2001, very good to see someone else extolling the virtues of JSGME. I want to let you know I wasn't trying to step on your toes, it's just that it took me a long time to type in my post, between having to run errands and all. Cheers!