More Awesome Than You!

Just did a clean install, and I'll be trying out a new custom hood this time around.  If I want to use N001 template only, then am I safe to delete the other hoods?  Would they need to be deleted both from My Documents folder and from C:\Program files? 

Max

Just delete them from My Documents.  If you delete them from program files as well, you'll NEVER be able to get them back without an uninstall, reinstall.

Of course, you could always create back ups and store them somewhere, but I'd imagine that the only advantage of deleting them from program files would be to save space on your hard drive.

Okay, Ness, good to know! Thanks!

Max

Well, even if you stupidly delete them from the install folder, you can still get them back from disk. TS2's files are easily accessible inside compressed.zip (bless whoever thought of this -- I hate the untransparant cabinets most games use).

And you can always use a cleaned up template to play them - that way you get to keep any of the houses you want, the hood is already decorated so it saves some time in setting up a new hood with those templates, and if you ever get young visitors who want to play Sims 2, you can always say yes, but you have to play Strangetown or Veronaville, Pleasantview is a no go area!

You mean you let other people play your sims? I am so selfish, I don't :D It's mine I tell ya! I am lucky my old pc still works as I have the sims installed on that upstairs, up to Pets. Daughter and friends play on that version.

Not often, I'll admit!  I used to let my neighbour's lad play occasionally, but after I got the laptop, he plays on that instead, and I made him his own account on that so he can play whichever hood he wants.

I'm now into playing themes, (so I don't have bursting at the seams downloads folders) and in my present one I only have two custom hoods.

I also have a plethora of renamed Pleasantviews all in the same folder, at present, though I'll probably eventually play them in different themes. 

I'm very territorial when it comes to my computer.  Not only would no visitor be allowed to play my sims, no visitor would be allowed to touch my computer at all.  DH is the same.  That's why a 2-person household needs 5 computers.

Well, he wasn't allowed to play MY sims!  And it was mainly while I was showing him how to play and build etc.  He wasn't playing unsupervised - no way!

Not even my husband is not allowed to touch the computer without prior permission, so imagine my anger when I discovered my visiting father-in-law had downloaded crap Big Fish games while I was out shopping...

Seems like you need to have a password!

  Huh?  Tell me more, Jordi.  Which cabinets?  ???

Max

He's saying that if you muck up your game because you deleted one stupid file, you can get it back easily from the game cd rather than doing a whole re-install. Most games aren't so forgiving.

Yup. Most games that use the Installshield installer (99% of them?) hide the content in the cabinet format (.cab files), which I have found no reader for. So if you need a single file back, you're going to have to do a full reinstall.
With TS2 you just open compressed.zip and grab it.

If you have the Mac edition of the game, instead, you have to ctrl-clic on the application, choose "Show Package contents" and open the subsequent folders till you find Archive.pax.gz. Copy this file from the DVD to the Desktop (or wherever you want, on your hard disc), double-clic and let it expand.

This archive is compressed with gzip and pax, but luckily the archiver built-in in the system can expand both formats.

If you make your objects.package file read only as soon as you install it, or after a patch then it shouldn't get corrupted. 

Jordi- I'm puzzled- I can extract .cab files using WinRAR or Ultimate Zip. Are you talking about different types of cabinet files?

Obviously.
Have you ever tried extracting the cab files that come with Installshield?

Hehe, I hadn't until now- I found an application which claims to support Installshield cabs, but it didn't work for me:
http://legroom.net/software/uniextract

Interesting tool. I'll give it a look.
There are a (very) few applications I still need to make Vista-compatible somehow, getting access to the raw installer data can help.