.MPQ file extension not recognized

[Aspiring Fanatic]

I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere, but I just searched for over half an hour and couldn't find a specific answer to my question anywhere.

I'm interested in doing some model editting and I've installed MWCS and BLPConverter_5, but there doesn't seem to be a program in Windows XP that recognizes the .MPQ file extension. So I cannot open the files in the patch.MPQ for editting. I've seen mention of a few programs that might work, but I was wondering which is best for opening these files? WoWMe? MPQView? Any others?

Once I can open the files I think I can get the hang of the editting process fairly quickly, so I'm excited, but this snag is getting frustrating.

[Parog]

DO NOT !!! ( and I cannot stress this enough ) !!! Edit any of the MPQ that are already there.

Think about model editing as aplying a thin invisible invisible layer on top of all the files so that they still can be read, but putting a different file on top of the one you want to modify, so that when it reads it, it reads your edit instead of the real thing.

MWCS can open MPQ files, you do not click on the files, just go to MWCS and click Open, then select the MPQ.

I HIGHLY recommend not modifying any of the MPQ there. Extract the BLP you need from MWCS, modify it and just create another MPQ, put in the proper path of the BLP, and then put it in your data folder with the propper name.

[Aspiring Fanatic]

Thanks for the advice. However, when I open the files in MWCS nothing shows up. I thought this was because the extension is not recognized, hence my question. Any other suggestions?

[Parog]

Get the latest MWCS. That's the only advice I would have. It should fix it.

[Aspiring Fanatic]

I thought I had, but I'll check to be sure. Thx.

Edit: Thx, Parog. I didn't have the newest version, and now I can access the .MPQ files. Problem I'm having now is that the files I'm finding (textures and whatnot) aren't of what I wanted to work with. lol

Guess I keep searching....