Guide 1.5 — Useful Plugins

In this part, I will talk about useful plugins for MO2.

NIF Preview for Mod Organizer 2.5.2

An important plugin that allows you to preview models and textures directly inside MO2. I recommend installing it for everyone.

💾 How to Install It

If someone gets confused:

Close Mod Organizer 2.

Download this mod manually — do not use the Download with Mod Manager button.

Extract the contents of the archive into the folder:

%your_MO2_instance_folder%\plugins

This must be the folder where the other MO2 plugins are located — the .dll files and the Data folder.

Launch Mod Organizer 2.

You can view files either in the “Data” tab or inside the mod itself by double-clicking it → Conflicts.

👉 This is incredibly convenient — a real lifesaver!

Root Builder

A plugin that allows you to install mods not only into the Data folder, but also into the game’s root folder, meaning the folder where SkyrimSE.exe is located.

It helps keep the game’s root folder clean, which makes life much easier.

🧩 Installing Root Builder

To install Root Builder, you first need to download it — either from Nexus Mods or from the Releases page on the Root Builder GitHub project.

Make sure you download the latest version.

📦 Extracting and Installing

After downloading the Root Builder archive:

RootBuilder.zip

Extract the rootbuilder folder from the archive.

Place it into the plugins folder of Mod Organizer 2.

If Mod Organizer is installed here:

C:\Mod Organizer\

then the required folder will be here:

C:\Mod Organizer\plugins\

📁 Checking the Installation

If everything was done correctly, inside:

C:\Mod Organizer\plugins\rootbuilder\

you should see:

two folders:

shared
rootbuilder

and the file:

__init__.py

After that, Root Builder is installed ✅

It will automatically start the next time you launch Mod Organizer 2.

⚙️ Using Root Builder

Root Builder allows you to install mods that need to be placed in the game’s root folder, not in Data.

To do this, it uses a special folder called:

root

This folder can be added inside a mod in Mod Organizer.

All files placed inside root will be temporarily injected into the game’s root folder when launching the game through MO2.

📚 Example: Installing SKSE

When you download SKSE, the archive contains files that must be installed into the game’s root folder:

skse64_1_6_342.dll
skse64_steam_loader.dll
skse_loader.exe

as well as the folder:

Scripts

which MO2 can process as a regular mod.

Before Preparing It for Root Builder

All files are located together, exactly as they are in the original SKSE archive.

After Preparing It

The .dll and .exe files need to be moved into the root folder.

The Scripts folder should be left as it is, next to it.

The Data folder can be set as the main directory of the mod.

👉 The final structure should look roughly like this:

SKSE\
 ├─ root\
 │   ├─ skse64_1_6_342.dll
 │   ├─ skse64_steam_loader.dll
 │   └─ skse_loader.exe
 ├─ Scripts\
 └─ Data\

⚠️ Important

You must not place the data folder inside root.

If Root Builder detects a data subfolder inside root, it will completely ignore this mod.

🧠 If the Mod Only Contains Root Files

Mod Organizer may show a warning such as:

“The mod looks incorrect”

or:

“Does not contain valid files”

This is normal and can be safely ignored — everything is working correctly.

✅ After Installation

Activate the mod as usual by checking the box in the mod list.

Add skse_loader.exe to the list of MO2 executables.

Since skse_loader.exe is not physically located in the game folder, you need to add it from the mod folder, for example:

If Mod Organizer is installed in portable mode:

C:\Mod Organizer\mods\SKSE\root\skse_loader.exe