More Awesome Than You!

Well, I've screwed up my TS2 installation pretty bad messing around with registry keys.  Basically, I backed up all of the registry entries I thought TS2 made, then I deleted them.  Well, I went into TS2 and it gave me a message about uninstalling EPs.  So I hit quit.  Then I restored my backups and went into TS2 again.  Well, this time TS2 wouldn't run because it said that I had uninstalled expansion packs, and to reinstall them.  So I put in my TS2 CD and it booted into the installer. Once I got done entering my license key, it booted into the TS2 OFB installer.  I thought that was weird, so I quit the installer.  So I decided to go and uninstall all of my expansion packs.  It turns out that when I exited the installer, TS2 deleted all of the TS2 Original core files, along with the OFB core files and my game data.  So I wasn't presented an option to uninstall OFB or TS2 Original in my Add/Remove Programs, so I just uninstalled all of my EPs and put in the TS2 Original CD.  So I got to the part where you start the install and I got a popup saying that egrc had closed unexpectedly.  So now I'm trying to figure out why egrc (the Registration program) won't start properly, which I think has to do with left-over registry keys from not formally uninstalling TS2 Original and OFB.  So I was wondering if anyone here had a list of all of the registry entries TS2 and all of its EPs make, so I can delete the left over registry entries and have a normal installation.

While I don't have a list of the registry entries, Maxis/EA did have a little utility posted in the "help" section which cleaned up the registry.  It appeared in the same section where all the patches can be downloaded.

I've searched everywhere in the TS2 website, and I can't find it.

This should give you the Pets key and from here you can find the others
 http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=14210&p_created=1161137602&p_sid=WBEwcFoi&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MjUmcF9wcm9kcz03LDcwMCwyMzQ3JnBfY2F0cz0wJnBfcHY9My4yMzQ3JnBfY3Y9JnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1

All keys I know of except the uninstall keys and file extensions:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Glamour Life Stuff
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES\The Sims 2
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Glamour Life Stuff
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Open For Business
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 University
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2 Glamour Life Stuff
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2 Nightlife
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2 Open For Business
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2 Pets
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2 University

Uninstall keys:
Base game:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{6E7DD182-9FC6-4651-0095-2E666CC6AF35}
Uni:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{8FD3F4BA-A4A6-4380-00A6-CC6853AB2DC2}
Nightlife:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{F7529650-B9DB-481B-0089-A2AC3C2821C1}
OFB:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{7B3577F5-1D82-4C9B-008B-69D026FD8BCA}
Pets:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{4817189D-1785-4627-A33C-39FD90919300}
FFS:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{6BDD9CE6-D0A6-478A-BAD3-BA6945E89EB0}
GLS:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{9CDBC303-3EED-40b0-8E41-A7C65AA96C26}

Unlike the keys above these may of course be specific to my locale.

I checked through all of my registry keys, mine also correspond exactly to the keys quoted above.  So not specific to locale, they are game specific.

Thanks for all the replies.  But now I have a new question.  Does anyone know how to change the path that TS2 looks for your data folder?  For instance making it so that instead of looking in "My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2" for you game data, it looks in "C:\ts2_game_data".

Can't be done. TS2 always uses My Documents. You can of course move your My documents path.

Or use a junction point to change the mount point (not for novices).

Jordi, please explain junction point changing to me, or point me to a web page about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point

The short line: mount point or shortcut. A junction point allows you to point C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\EA Games\ to anywhere you like: you can point it to D:\Games\Sims if you like.

I use it on my own system to point all temp folders (C:\Windows\Temp, C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Temp, C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Local Settings\Temp, C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temp, C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\Temp) to a flash drive (F:\Temp), and some other tricks like that.

This GUI tool will allow you to easily create them: Junction Link Magic (http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm)

Not recommended if you don't have the slightest clue what you're doing: you can seriously mess up your system with this.