More Awesome Than You!

My sister's copy of Glamour pack refuses to install properly.
The very first time she tried it, it did just fine, but it didn't show the message of updating the software. So of course assuming all was right with the world she started up the game, but the CAS didn't work. There was no model sim! >:( So she exited and restarted a few times, still with the same result.
Then she tried uninstalling and reinstalling; this time it showed the message about updating the software, but it said that her game was not installed or improperly installed and cancelled the installation. She's tried reinstalling the game about five times still with the same result.
Any help would be most appreciated!

Consider your sister lucky. :P

Did she do all the standard stuff like disabling firewalls and temporarily removing custom content?

yup. She even backed up all her game data.

It shouldn't matter that she doesn't have OFB or FFS, right?

It shouldn't, but then again this is maxis. :P

Is she installing the game into the default directory? Try going to that file path and removing the Glamour folder that the game placed, that should let it finish installing.

Yeah she is installing it in the default directory. Do you mean after the game is almost done installing, remove the folder when it gets to the updating software point?

No, I mean remove the folder now and then install.  :)

 ??? but there's no folder there.

What do you mean there's no folder there?  Did it get deleted somehow?  If that's the case, then you might have to go into the registry to delete all the entries pertaining to TS2 then reinstall.  CCleaner might get rid of the entries for you automatically if you don't want to do it manually, but I'm not sure about that.

Ok she tried installing again, and here's a screenshot of the message.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/galidor/Untitled-1.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/galidor/Untitled-1.jpg)

Perhaps this is the computer's way of preventing itself from becoming rendered inoperable at the hands of faulty software. :P

The error message appears to make reference to the base game.  I've not purchased any "stuff" packs so don't know if error messages refer to the packs by name.

Can your sister open and play TS2, and have it run "normally"?

Is she playing just the base game or does she have NL?

Am a bit confused on what was uninstalled and reinstalled, so please be patient.

Something went wonky in the installation and it looks to have screwed up even the base game. Make sure her neighborhoods, downloads, etc are backed up, uninstall the entire game manually (that means going into her registry to delete all the files that are probably left behind), and then reinstall.

I know, it's the cliche answer, but if it's corrupted the base game, or it thinks it has, there's no other way.

The game even tells you to back up before you install for times like this. Why they don't try to FIX the damn problem(s) instead of just warning us about it is obviously some Maxian reasoning, but you can't say we weren't warned.  ::)

If you need a tutorial for install/uninstall, here's a nice one from the good folks at MTS2:

http://forums.modthesims2.com/article.php?t=139059

I know they have site loading problems. It's a popular site, what can I say? Just be patient if you can't get in right away.

She has NL and Uni. And Yes she can play NL and it run normally.


Thanks. I suppuse she can try that. I hope it works.

Honestly? Because there are so many variations out there on computer systems, software configurations, hardware configurations, etc. that it would be nearly impossible to try and compensate for every single problem that might go wrong.

I work in technical support and part of my job is dealing with problems with software installs. There are very few standards when it comes to computers and programmers are expected to make software that will work on multiple operating systems with multiple configurations and take into account any problems that might pre-exist with other software or malware. We had a situation come up a year or so ago where Windows did an update for XP and suddenly our software couldn't be installed. Our customers blamed us, even though it was an unexpected result of a security update by Windows. We got an update to our software out as quick as possible, but it was still an annoying problem. In addition, we have to be aware of whether the person is trying to install on an OEM system or not. There are permissions problems with Dell, HP, Gateway, etc that are different from the problems someone might experience on a generic or a home-built system.

If the software is installing fine on the majority of systems out there, there's probably nothing wrong with the design of the software. There's no excuse for shoddy programing, but there's also a level of common sense that needs to be followed. Backing up files is a good idea because even if there isn't the possibility of some glitch occurring and messing the software up, there's always the chance that someone might decide they don't like they expansion and want to get rid of it.

(And sorry for the mini-rant. I get kinda tired of all the Maxis/EA bashing. It seems the vogue thing to do to differentiate from the 'sheep' that congregate at the official boards. It gets just as annoying as the other end of the spectrum.)

Well, everything was uninstalled and reinstalled, TS2, then GP and Uni and NL in that order, just to be sure. She's now a very happy camper as everything is now running smoothly. Thank God for external HDD.

 Thanks for all the help guys and gals. :-*

In the Good Old Days, you didn't HAVE problems installing software because software installed through the very simple expedient of COPYING THE DIRECTORIES. It was remarkably simple and effective. If something went wrong in that, it meant your disks or drives were FUBAR. Then people decided these stupid installers would be a great idea. Did I mention I HATE installers?

Don't even get me started.  I'm still busy whining about all this "user friendly" GUI crap that we've had shoved down our throats.  I miss the good old days of DOS when you told the damn computer what to do, and it did it.

Now it pops up some annoying little cartoon thingy and says, "I'm sorry, but you don't seem to understand...  In Microsoft universe, Windows runs YOU!"

Blarg.

[/rant]

-Kitt

Windows installers aren't that bad compared to Linux ones.  Ones such as YAST don't even work have the time, and you can easily bork your install with it.  Then again, Linux is for servers not desktops.

This "Windows Registry" is just spyware, it keeps remnants of the locations of files that you probably deleted a few months ago.  Not to mention that Programs really shouldn't need such a thing but they do anyway.

What is installing, exactly? I've always sort of wondered about this. Is it something beyond copying the relevant files? There has to be some reason why it's such a big production, but I can't really think of why. And if I could, it'd probably be wrong.

Beyond unzipping and putting the files in the program directory, the installer adds a bunch of stuff to the registry telling your system and game where to find things.  Don't know if it does much beyond that.

Yeah, that's pretty much the extent of it.  They sometimes also modify older files, though I haven't looked to see if the Sims 2 expansions in specific do this or not.

"Registry" is basically a fancy word meaning, "Bloated index table to tell stupid operating systems where to find all the files other files are dependant on."

There are much better ways to do the same job, but MS likes it this way, because by default nature our computers get to store away all sorts of little bits of information about us.  Regardless what their PR department says, they've been caught more than once invading people's privacy in similar regards, and they're definitely pro-spyware -especially when the results go to them.

-Kitt

/me points and laughs at the PC users.