thanks all for the replies; it's nice to have a non-toxic and helpful community. I tried the Purge yesterday. and yes, i manually dn and use vortex to install...mostly. sometimes i manually install the files and folders, it just depends on what i'm installing. like i said earlier, i really should just buckle down and learn mo2, but i'm spoiled with nmm and now vortex. i tried mo2 a couple years ago and my brain snafu'd and i made a mess of things. and arthmoor is correct, that make a lot of sense. i didn't think about vortex calling home to check for validity. anyway, i got the mod to work, but i don't understand how. there's no esp in the data folder for either the delete mod or the lakeview mod. i assume it's finding it in the vortex history folder.