Install Nightly's with Steam (Final Mod hopefully)

[Ted]

I had this game installed and working in the past, (many months ago), and when I saw the Final Mod thing I decided to download it and give it a try.  I had a heck of time and unfortunately after many attempts to get it to work I accidently blew away my original Xcom data :-( 

So I downloaded Xcom from Steam and went with that.  It worked just fine.  So I downloaded the latest Nightly build, created an Openxcom folder, and copied everything into that.  Now  open xcom doesn't load no more.  I just get a message that it can't find the geodata files.

I've tried copying the Steam version of the original xcom files all over the place hoping to make this work.  My current folder structure looks like this:
C:\games\OpenXcom\UFO\(all the Xcom folders)
C:\games\Steam\SteamApps\common\XCom UFO Defense

Note that I always install games to the C:\games folder instead of programs.  I like to keep that stuff separate.

I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm missing.  I've read through all the install docs again and again and figure it's got to be something right in front of me.  Do I have to use the installer, and then separately copy the nightlies?

And while I am typing this, (assuming I get this silly thing to work), to install the Final Mod I create:
C:\games\OpenXcom\UFO\mod\Final Mod

And extract all the mod files to that location, correct?

Thanks much in advance.

Ted

[Warboy1982]

try deleting your old config in my documents/openxcom/, and put mods in my documents/openxcom/mods

[Ted]

I don't have any OpenXcom folder under My Documents.  Am I supposed to?  Is that created by the Install program?  If so something is going wrong because I've installed that several times and it's never put one there.

Ted

[Ted]

I've read this section several times and I am confused:
Step by Step Guide for Upgrading:

• Copy your original UFO data files somewhere safe
  Uninstall OpenXcom and remove any files left behind in the "data" directory
  Install OpenXcom
  Copy your original UFO data files into the UFO directory (either in the data dir or the user dir).  You can apply the universal patch files over the files here, but don't include any files from mods
  Start OpenXcom to make sure it loads ok
  

It says uninstall Xcom, ok I did that.  Now my Xcom folder is gone completely, with no Data folder there at all.  Next it says to install Openxcom again.  Ok, that wil put it right back with the same Data folder again. Right?  Or am I missing something very basic?  I've done this several times already and it works the same way.  There is no "Install" program that I can find with the nightlies, so I just create an OpenXcom folder and extract the files into it, but that doesn't work.

What am I missing here?

[Warboy1982]

when it says "install openxcom" it doesn't mean "use the installer" it means "extract the nightly"
that's literally all there is to it. extract the nightly somewhere, copy xcom into the ufo folder, done. don't bother with 1.0