Workbench setup

Setting up DayZ Tools is the first real wall in DayZ modding, and it’s the one people most often get wrong. The steps aren’t hard, but they’re easy to do in the wrong order or skip entirely — and when the setup is subtly broken, everything afterward fails in confusing ways. This page walks the whole thing end to end so you only have to do it once.

By the end you’ll have the tools installed, the P: drive mounted, the game data extracted onto it, and a way to confirm it all actually works.

Before you start

A few prerequisites save a lot of grief:

• Own DayZ on Steam and have it installed. (Modding the Steam version is the supported path.)
• Launch the game at least once before opening the tools. DayZ Tools checks for a real game install, and Workbench will refuse to start — typically with a “game is not installed” error — if the game has never been run.
• Windows. DayZ Tools is Windows-only (64-bit).
• Free disk space. The extracted game data is large. Keep plenty of room free on the drive you’ll mount P: onto — a common rule of thumb is at least ~20 GB.

Disk choice matters

The P: drive is mounted from a folder on a real disk. Put that folder on a drive with space to spare (an SSD makes the tools noticeably faster), and avoid a path with spaces in it.

Install DayZ Tools

DayZ Tools is a free application from Bohemia Interactive, separate from the game itself:

1. In the Steam library, switch the category filter to Tools (or search your library for “DayZ Tools”).
2. Install DayZ Tools, then launch it with Play DayZ Tools.

That opens the DayZ Tools Launcher, which validates your install and is the jumping-off point for every individual tool. The suite includes:

• Workbench — the scripting and engine-side workspace (script editor + live debugger).
• Object Builder — the 3D model tool, where .p3d models are built and configured.
• Addon Builder — packs a source folder into a .pbo for the game to load.
• Publisher — uploads finished mods to the Steam Workshop.

You won’t need all of them today. The goal right now is the environment underneath them: the P: drive.

The P: drive, and why it matters

DayZ’s tools don’t work against scattered files wherever they happen to live. They expect a single work drive — a virtual drive, by convention lettered P: — that mirrors the game’s filesystem. Everything is addressed by absolute paths rooted at P:\: the game’s own data, the textures a model references, and your own mod source all sit under that one root.

This is the concept to get right. If your mod source lives somewhere off P:, or you mount the drive on a different letter, paths stop resolving and the tools quietly fail to find things.

Why P: specifically

You can pick another drive letter in the settings, but don’t. Sample projects and the tools’ default texture paths are hard-coded to P:\. Using a different letter means fixing those by hand forever. Stick with P:.

Mount the drive and extract the game data

These are two separate steps, and conflating them is a classic mistake. Mounting creates the (empty) P: drive; extracting fills it with the game’s files.

1. Mount P:. In the DayZ Tools Launcher’s settings, set the work-drive path and letter (leave it at P:\). There’s usually an option to mount it automatically on startup — turn that on so you don’t have to remember after each reboot. Once mounted, P: appears in Windows Explorer next to your other drives.
2. Extract Game Data. From the Launcher, run Tools → Extract Game Data. This copies the vanilla game files onto P: so you can reference and build against them. It can take a while (tens of minutes on a slow disk) — let it finish.

After extraction you’ll have the game’s data on P:, including a scripts folder with the vanilla EnScript source — your single best reference for how Bohemia builds things.

Menu wording varies

The exact labels (“Extract Game Data”, “Mount Drive”, where the setting sits) have shifted between DayZ Tools versions. If a name here doesn’t match yours exactly, look for the nearest equivalent in the Launcher’s Tools and Settings — the two operations (mount, then extract) are what matter.

Re-extract after big updates, and mind the EULA

Re-run Extract Game Data after every major game update so your reference data matches the live game. And note: using the official Extract Game Data is fine — that’s Bohemia providing the data for modding. De-binarizing shipped assets (DeODOL) is not, under the DayZ EULA. This site doesn’t cover those workflows; the official extract is all you need.

Where your mod source lives

With P: mounted, your own work lives under it too. A simple convention:

P:\
├── DZ\            # vanilla game data (from Extract Game Data) — reference only
├── MyMod\         # your mod source: config.cpp, scripts, models, textures
└── Mods\
    └── @MyMod\
        └── addons\   # packed output (the .pbo Addon Builder produces)

Keep your source (what you edit) separate from your packed output (what the game loads). When you pack with Addon Builder, point its “path to project folder” at your mod’s folder — not at bare P:, or it will try to scan the entire drive and crawl.

Lowercase your packed files

The packed addons folder and the files inside it must be lowercase. Windows won’t care, but Linux DayZ servers will refuse to load mixed-case PBOs — and you’ll only find out when someone tries to run your mod on a real server.

Once your tools are working, Project workflow covers laying a project out so it stays maintainable, and File patching covers iterating on scripts without repacking every change.

First-run sanity checks

Before you write a line of mod code, confirm the setup actually took:

• P: is visible in Explorer. If it isn’t, the drive didn’t mount — reopen DayZ Tools.
• P: has game data on it. You should see the extracted folders (e.g. a populated P:\scripts). If it’s empty, Extract Game Data didn’t run or didn’t finish.
• Workbench opens without a “game is not installed” error. If you hit that error, launch the actual game once, then try again.
• Workbench’s Resource Browser shows the project tree. If it’s empty, set Workbench’s Options → Workbench → source data directory to P:\ and restart it.

If all four pass, your environment is sound and the rest of the site’s tooling will behave.

Common mistakes and how to recover

Most setup problems are one of these:

• “Game is not installed” when opening Workbench. DayZ has never been run on this machine. Launch the game once from Steam, then reopen the tools.
• P: is missing after a reboot. The drive isn’t mounted. Reopen DayZ Tools (and enable mount-on-startup in settings so it persists).
• Tools can’t find your files / paths don’t resolve. Your source is off P:, or you mounted on a non-P: letter. Move the source under P: and use the P: letter.
• Resource Browser is empty in Workbench. The source data directory isn’t set to P:\. Fix it in Workbench’s options and restart.
• Packing is endlessly slow. Addon Builder’s project folder is set too broadly (e.g. bare P:), so it’s scanning the whole drive. Point it at your mod’s folder instead.
• Your mod runs locally but not on a server. Almost always mixed-case file or folder names in the PBO. Repack with everything under addons lowercase.
• Something compiles but misbehaves at runtime. Read the logs. The client and server each write an .RPT log file (in their profile directory) with script errors and warnings — it’s the first place to look when behaviour is wrong rather than broken.

Next steps

With the environment working, you’re ready for the actual content:

• Modding overview — the big picture of how a mod fits together.
• Scripting overview — start writing EnScript.
• Asset Work overview — start building models.

Related

• Tooling & Setup overview
• Project workflow
• Packing