Clicking the no mods button does not take me back to vanilla fs2(the no mods button is like for deactivating user campaigns, or is it because i have mediavps in fs2 home directory?). I tried it last night when i was playing the fs2 main campaign(i don't have any other campaigns right now).
Hit the nail on the head with that one. If you've installed the media VPs to the main folder you lose the ability to go back to retail configuration while they are still there. As I said this is why you should install to a seperate folder.
And i'm not talking about moving the mediavp's around, i'm talking about standard installation(fs2 main directory says the scp website).
The guide on the SCP site is old. That was the way we used to recommend doing things over a year ago but after seeing the number of problems it was causing I asked if it would not be more sensible to start running the mediavps as a mod now that we had mod.ini files to make it a simple prospect. No one posted to disagree with me and pretty much everyone on the SCP seemed to think it was the right choice.
Since then you're the only person to tell me I'm wrong on this one.
After that it's supposed to work. And it makes it easy for customizing your graphics on fs2. Drag and drop...it works(generally). Need it gone because it's too slow or you don't particularly care for it...delete it. That's simplistic and easy right there.
The other hand is actually more complicated. Need to modify a file i didn't know existed until i was told, and the no mod button just turns off user campaigns.
Using the mod.ini to turn of mediavps if you need to is the correct and quickest way to do things. But nothing is stopping you from doing things your way. You simply do the same thing in the mediavps folder instead of the main FS2 one.
This problem just turned into the most dumb**** argument ever. Why mention about switching back and forth from retail when the original question is how to get mvadveffects activated? Why talk about how to manage media vps when were talking about installing them in the first place?
Cause if he follows your advice there's a good possibility he'll be back the next day asking exactly how to do that. I know full well that unlike you dBorden
is using ShivanSPS's pack (v1.6 or 1.8 IIRC) so not only is your advice bad generally it's bad advice specifically for the original poster. If he follows it he'd bugger up the installation set up that ShivanSPS so carefully set up for him, render future updates uninstallable or unstable and end up with a set up where the mod tab contradicted what was actually happening (ShivanSPS's set up should have a mod.ini in the main FS2 folder stating how to activate the media VPs. This would now be completely incorrect).
But 
since i'll get slapped for recommending how the scp website says how to install media vp's since i live in the world of impossibility and no problems 
More people to ***** at me anyway
It's not about wanting to ***** at you. As I stated in my first post I've spent the best part of a year trying to convince people to swap to using a mediavps folder with good reason. It tends to get on my nerves when people recommend an alterative method without understanding why we abandoned it. You weren't here when we used to recommend installing to the main folder. You never saw the volume of complaints it caused.
"I can't play retail", "How do I turn the media VPs off", "The media VPs are interfering with my TBP install" That was all we used to hear and it was mostly me who ended up having to fix the problems. Excuse me if I react badly to someone whose advice would just cause problems for me further down the line.
Here's one good piece of advice. Fs2 should have a new launcher version to come out, one that has in the features tab with a media vp list and have check boxes to check off which media vps you want active and which ones you don't. Then like everyone would be happier, this problem may not have existed, everyone would have management over the media vp's without having to delete or re add them and so on, also modification of mod.ini would be almost zilch.
You want to submit a diff of how to achieve those changes in CFILE then go ahead. If not you'd better change your tone from advising to requesting.
I'm not going to comment on whether such a change would be a good idea or not. Taylor knows CFILE a lot better than I do but I will point out that the suggestion won't help one iota for people who have added the latest HTL ship or new effects to their data folder. That's basically the mistake ShivanSPS made with his first all in one pack and he was sensible enough to realise that it's better to stick everything like that in mediavps\Data (or in a VP) than it is to add it to Freespace2\Data.
