Morrowind Code Patch Must Be Installed In The Morrowind Directory
Charise Farag
Before I begin, I would like to take the time to mention that this guide is aimed at the absolute beginner. That is, someone who wishes to install and use mods for Morrowind, but has no prior modding experience with The Elder Scrolls or is completely new to modding in general. So I will be explaining topics in detail that some of you more experienced readers may want to skip.
The installation of Morrowind will appear to be a strange place to begin a guide on modding, but getting the installation right will avoid some issues that might appear in the future. This is especially true for Windows Vista/7/8 users.
Because Morrowind was developed for Windows XP, there are a couple of issues that arise due to the increased security when installing to the default C:\Program Files directory. Firstly, Morrowind may crash on startup with the error "Failed to load model: Meshes\BM_Snow01.nif". The second issue that you may experience is downloaded mods not appearing.
I also recommend reinstalling Morrowind if you already have it installed in the C:\Program Files directory. While it is a hassle to have to reinstall the game, doing so now will save you a lot of time and frustration down the road.
Once both expansions are installed, I recommend running Morrowind, starting a new game, and playing until you exit the Census and Excise office. This is just to test your installation to make sure that there are no major issues, and that Morrowind and your OS are playing nicely.
To find it you must go to where you have installed Morrowind. The default location (the one that's recommended not to use, but I'm using it as an example) is C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind. To navigate to this example directory, go to Computer found in the start menu (XP users will have this as My Computer). At the top will be a list of the installed hard drives (there may only be the one), we need the one that ends with (C:). Once here find a folder called Program Files, once in there now find Bethesda Softworks. Within here you should see a folder called Morrowind. Open it. You should now be able to see Morrowind.exe! If not, look for a file simply called Morrowind.
To find the data folder, first make sure that you are looking at the game folder. From here you should see a folder called Data Files. That's the folder we need, open it up and you should see more folders marked as Meshes, Textures, etc. Though don't worry if you don't. You should also see some files called Morrowind.esm, Tribunal.esm, and Bloodmoon.esm. These are master files. Mods are similar to these, but would end with .esp. These are called plugin files.
Before going onto a mod hosting site and downloading any mod that you think is cool, it is recommended to install a few mods that are considered essentials by the community, and in the following order.
As you are downloading the following mods, you will find some of them to be .7zip, .rar, or .zip files. These are types of archives, and are used to package mods. So it is essential that you know what they are and how to use them. Please read our Archives page for further reading.
The Morrowind Code Patch (MCP) isn't your typical mod. MCP modifies the actual codebase in Morrowind's .exe to fix many of the hardcoded bugs that are unfixable with mods. It also offers many optional additions and tweaks like bump/reflect mapping local lighting. MCP is recommended for the improved stability and reduced chance of a CTD it offers.
You can download MCP from the Nexus sites. To install MCP, first extract the downloaded archive. Then, apart from the Data Files folder, copy everything into your game folder. The extracted Data Files folder can be ignored as it only contains a showcase mod.
With all of MCP's files in your game folder, run Morrowind Code Patch.exe. With MCP running you can see a list of all of the patches it can apply. Clicking on an entry will provide a short description of what it does. If you scroll towards the bottom of the list you'll see the -Bug Fixes- section, with all of its patches already checked.
As this is your first time using MCP, it is recommended to leave everything at the defaults and to just click on the Apply chosen patches button at the bottom. You can always re-run MCP at a later date.
You can download the exe Optimizer from Timeslip's website. To install the optimizer, first extract the contents of the 7zip archive. You need not copy any files to your game folder. Just run exeOpt.exe, click on the Find Morrowind Manually button and select your game folder. Then simply click on the Patch Morrowind button. It may take a few minutes to finish patching the executable. As with MCP, it is recommended not to tweak the options.
The Patch for Purists is an alternative to the Morrowind Patch Project. Unlike the MPP, the Patch for Purists aims to only fix bugs and avoid balance changes, and is still being actively maintained. The current version was released in December 2020; it is available for download from Morrowind Nexus.
In years past Planet Elder Scrolls (PES) was the place to go for mods. Unfortunately the site is now dead. Most (if not all) of the mods that were to be found on PES have been relocated to Morrowind Modding History.
There are two mod install methods that you can use. Using a mod manager will make your life easier and much more convenient. A good mod manager will not only install a mod for you, but also: allow the manipulation of the load order, manage mod conflicts, and allow easy mod removal. Unfortunately, many mods (mostly the older ones as they predate many mod managers) can not be installed using a mod manager. As such, it's important to know how to perform a manual installation. It's also important to understand just what the mod manager is doing for you, if you choose to use one.
As a beginner, I highly recommend installing your first few mods manually. This is so that you will understand how mods are installed, as well as providing the knowledge and confidence to troubleshoot any issues that may occur after installing or removing a mod. Regardless of the installation method that you may have used (manual or mod manager).
The manual installation of a mod is as simple as copying files into their correct destination folders, and then activating the mod in Morrowind's launcher. It's made even easier that most mods are distributed with a replication of the data folder; so that you can clearly see into what folders every file must go into.
Let's use Better Bodies as our example mod. Better Bodies replaces the vanilla segmented character bodies with smoother higher-res versions. Go ahead and download the file marked as manual, and extract the archive. When you're ready open up the extracted folder. You should see three folders: Nude, Peanut Gallery, Underwear. These are the three different versions of Better Bodies, and you can only use one at a time. So pick the version you would like to have and open the folder. Don't worry about it being possibly different to what I'll use as an example, as each version has the same structure and number of files.
Within the folder you opened you should see a Data Files folder. Open it. Now you should see two folders: one called Meshes and another called Textures. The meshes folder contains the files that define the physical properties of every object in the game, while the files in the textures folder are "wrapped" around the meshes to give them their color. With the folders should also be two files: Better Bodies.esp and Better Bodies.txt. Better Bodies.txt is the readme file and typically you would read it, but for now we'll ignore it. The other file is the called a plugin file, and this is what is used to add the content to Morrowind and tell it how to use the meshes and textures.
Now open up your data folder. Copy over the Better Bodies.esp into the folder. If you don't see any Meshes or Textures folders within your data folder, then simply copy over the respective folders from the Better Bodies folder. If you do see these folders, then for each one you must copy over the contents of the folders. For example, Meshes contains the bb folder, you copy this folder into the Meshes folder in your data folder. Once all of the necessary files have been copied over, launch Morrowind's launcher. Instead of clicking Play, click on the Data Files button. This will bring up a list that contains:
This is where you activate and deactivate mods (and the expansions if you wanted). Activating a mod is simply telling the game that you would like it to be loaded. So if you were to uncheck Bloodmoon.esm then when you next go to play Morrowind, Bloodmoon will not be loaded. You may find that Better Bodies.esp has not been checked, while the others have. If that's the case then check it.
As mentioned, a mod manager will make your life much easier when using mods. As a beginner I recommend using the Nexus Mod Manager, while it doesn't have any of the advanced features found with something like Wrye Mash, it more than makes up for it by being simpler to use for a beginner. Plus, because it's tied with NexusMods you can click the Download with manager button on most mod download pages to let NMM do the downloading for you. Visit the Mod Manager page for more info on other managers.
Get NMM from here. There are currently two versions of Nexus Mod Manager: version 0.51.0 and Legacy. Version 0.51.0 is built with the .NET Framework 4.5, which is not available to Windows XP users. This is who the Legacy version is aimed at. If you do have Windows Vista/7/8 then I do recommend getting 0.51.0 as this is the version that is continually receiving updates. When you have installed NMM, it will go through a first time setup where it scans your computer for any of the games that it's compatible with. After that it will ask where you would like it to keep the mods. I would stick with the default for now.