Editing Armature with a mesh parented

Sorry if this has been asked before because I looked all through this forum and couldn’t find my answer. I haven’t used blender since 2.49 and just started using again with 2.58.

My question is regarding editing an armature with a mesh parented to bones. I have a completed character made up of several parts. I used an old armature that is parented to it; some places are using weights and a modifier while others are just simply a mesh parented to a bone. I just realized that I need to edit my armature to add a few more bones, or change the position of where the bone bends, however when I edit the armature, the meshes that are parented to the bones I edited move as well. Is their a way for me to edit the armature and not have it mess with the meshes without de-parenting them first?

Thank you

I don’t know of anyway to do that without un-parenting the mesh from the bones… I realize that could become quite tedious if you are talking several meshes, but I really don’t see anyway around it…

Randy