You open a packaged model just as you would open any Vensim model. Packaged models are listed when you use File>Open Model and double clicking on them in Windows Explorer will open them. When a packaged model is open, however, its appearance may be somewhat different.
If the model is marked as not allowing Save As then there will be no sketch tools shown across the top toolbar. File>Save and Views>As Text will not work.
If Save As is allowed, the model will appear normally. File Save will open the Save As dialog. You can make changes to the model but the changes must be made outside the package. The package itself is read only.
If the package contains runs you will not be able to use that run name. You can load and unload the runs from the control panel, but they will not appear as files on the operating system.
If the package contains a toolset then in Standard, Professional and DSS you will be asked if you want to load that toolset. In the Vensim Model Reader that toolset will automatically be loaded, this assures that any embedded graphs appear as expected. In Vensim PLE and PLE Plus the toolset is ignored as these configurations do not support toolset modification.
If the package contains sensitivity or optimization control files using the wizards to run these will read the packaged files, then write any changes you make to an operating system file. If you reopen the package you will start again from the packaged control files. Packages are read only and designed to always give the same results when opened.
If you open a packaged model and save that model to another name the runs in the package will still be available to you. However, if you close and reopen Vensim on the model that you saved the packaged model to those runs will no longer be available.
Only one packaged models can be opened at one time. This means if you open a second packaged model the model associated with the first package will be closed. It is also not possible to publish a packaged model or the files contained in the package.
If you happen to have a disk file with the same name as a file in the packaged model, the file in the packaged model will be used. It is good practice to open packaged models in folders that do not have many other files to avoid any confusion that this can cause.
