You don't need to have NOLF on your computer, but if you had either the game or one of the demos then you could see what DEdit needs in order to recognize the M&M files. You've gained my confidence for loading up both LoMM and MM9, though. The NOLF demos are at the NOLF download page at the link below:Many of the helpful sites are no longer available. There was a really helpful modding forum at the NOLF site -- gone now. There was a LoMM modding community for a while. I'm not finding their site, but I found a new one at:
http://legendsofmightandmagicheadquarter.yuku.com/forums/7/t/Mappers-Modders-Forum.html
I also found something that might be of interest to you -- archives of an old forum handling technical questions of NOLF. Monolith released the source code of NOLF and so there might be some insights for you there. The source code is on the NOLF download page. The forum is at the link below.:
http://oldschool.thegluefactory.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=15
What you *really* want right now is the info laid out by 'HugMe' on how to adapt the unrezzed M&M folders for DEdit (that's another hint). Unfortunately, those pages aren't publicly archived. I'll send them to you if you can't figure it out, but you'll gain my confidence if you can manage this hurdle on your own.