More Awesome Than You!

I really broke it this time.

This weekend, I uninstalled another game by EA called NBA Live 2005.  Today, I tried to play TS2 for the first time since then, and found that the uninstall had somehow deleted the .exe files for all my Sims expansion packs.   >:(  Other than the missing .exe files, my game files appear to be mostly intact.

How should I go about putting everything back in order?  Should I completely uninstall every single expansion pack, then reinstall them one by one?  Or is there a simpler way to go about this?

As far as I know, uninstalling the latest EP uninstalls everything else, because new EP's introduce new files that older games cannot read any longer.

As far as just installing select files from the disc, I'm afraid you'll have to wait for someone else to help you. Just make sure you back up your files before uninstalling and hide them on your desktop. I even go so far as re-naming the back-up just to be on the safe side. You can then just plop the older files into the new folder and they'll overwrite the new-install with your saved stuff, i.e. your neighborhoods, characters, etc.

But before doing the uninstall/re-install bit, wait a while. Maybe someone else has a better idea ;)

If only the .exe's are gone, you can copy them back from the original disk.  You only need the one for the highest/latest EP you have, since it doesn't run the older ones.  You can find the original .exe usually on the first disk for the EP, in a file called something like compressed.zip.

Fucking EA.

You have to be kidding me.

Why would anyone buy anything else this crappy company produces ever again?

>.<

I just noticed this earlier today: For some reason, my OFB executables had gone missing, and the game was suddenly bitching that I had uninstalled it. It is uncertain whether this is the work of SecuROM. Or why OFB, and only OFB, would go missing as a result.

Oh lordy, this is getting prettier and prettier. I am now getting seriously worried. There is a lot of stuff on my PC, including years worth of research for my thesis. I better run, and spend money that I can ill afford to spend on a peripheral hard-drive. In addition, my PC was 'born' in 1998 (or 99, I forget) which makes it very low end and very vulnerable.



... you said it quite to the point there... bloody, greedy company.

Thanks for the responses, guys.   :)

I was able to copy the Bon Voyage executable from the disk onto my harddrive and create a new desktop shortcut.  I haven't loaded the game yet 'cause I want to backup my files first.

I'll let you know if I have any further problems... I'm still not entirely sure that the executable was the only thing missing.

It'll probably start bitching at you that various expansion packs have now been uninstalled and it will now mutilate your game files, even when their stupid launcher still detects them.

Actually, I just played for a few hours and everything worked fine.  Did your game get borked after your OFB executable diasappeared?

Well, it kept bitching that OFB had been uninstalled and that it was going to try to shred all my businesses, even though the files were THERE, even after they were reinstalled, yes. It took 3 reinstalls before it finally re-recognized that the game was present.

Burnable CDs and DVDs are very cheap now.  Sure, it'll take a long time to back everything up on disks, but if cost is an issue, it's the way to go.  Consider "renting" a DVD-RW drive if you don't have one; just take it back to the store before the 15-day return period ends, which should be enough time to make your backups.

I wonder if that's what happened to my Holiday pack. When I reinstalled Seasons and BV earlier this week, I went in to make sure it had actually uninstalled right (BV had, Seasons hadn't) and I noticed that Holiday was missing from both Program Files and the registry. I thought maybe I hadn't installed it last time, so I dug out the disk to install with the others, and it told me it was already installed. That puzzled me and I meant to both look to see if the content was still there and ask about it in here, but then got distracted and forgot.

Hmm, on my computer most of the files were still there in Program Files and the registry.  I wouldn't have even known the executables were missing until Windows said that my BV shortcut wasn't pointing to an actual file.  When I went to relink it, I found that there was no executable in my TSBin folder (the launcher was still there, though).  That's when I started checking all the other expansion pack folders in Program Files and found that all of the executables were gone.

That's normal, the holiday pack doesn't have its own folder or registry entry as it acts more like a patch than a stuff pack

That's an alternative, BastDawn. I am just paranoid that something might happen to the disk(s). Someone told me to get a separate hard-drive, but now I'm worried that SecuRom will infest that one too. It appears I'm getting a tad paranoid, but that stuff is  irreplaceable.

Anyway, thank you, BastDawn, good suggestion. I'll do that right away, can't hurt to have a few extra back-ups.

Disks you save should be fine -- SecuRom doesn't spread in a viral fashion.