I like to run my test version of the Sims in windowed mode. However, I can't seem to find a way to adjust the resolution using the shortcut. It keeps running at 800x600.

This is what I have in the target window of the shortcut:

"C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Pets\TSBin\Sims2EP4.exe" -w -r 1024x768

What am I doing wrong?

Has anyone checked their missing colors using clean installer? When I get done processing a hair style I immediately load it into clean installer. Sometimes one of the colors (usually black for me, but sometimes blonde) will show up as an empty package.

I redo the one missing color then recheck with clean installer. Most of the time it "takes" on the 2nd try, although a few packages had to been done 3 or 4 times before it would save the package correctly. When I have all 4 hair colors not showing up as empty packages, I delete the original files. (I have the whole folder backed up elsewhere on the drive for emergency). I find that I can keep clean installer open along with SimPe so it isn't too hard to keep an eye out for empty packages.

I reported this on the MTS2 thread but haven't seen a fix available yet. In the meantime, this procedure has worked well for me.

If you check these mystery files with clean installer, they will probably be empty. When you install a lot into your game, these files often appear when the game is run and it installs the lot into the actual game.

Empty files can be deleted. They are no longer needed. By subfoldering all the rest of your downloaded items, you can more easily keep track when the garbage files appear.

Gee, my Sims insist on skillinating on ANY item that aren't these objects (except the cleaning gun, they like that one). How are you getting them to use these? Is it because you don't allow any other objects on the lot that can perform the same functions? I've had stupid Sims start working out to the radio rather than choose the punching bag or obstacle course.

Have you tried Insim's "Restore Family" or Inge's teleporter bush to see if you can teleport her back to the lot? I think, but I'm not positive, that the FFS Lot debugger also has a restore family function.

Does the Inteen version need updated for Pets? If so, is there be one in the offing?

Sometimes an invisible object such as the smell emitter, gets stuck on the lot. This is how to fix it.

First make sure that you have "stuckobjectremover" installed.

Next, go to the affected lot. Take an item that is one tile in size, such as a chair. Hover over all of the "empty" tiles on the lot.  Start your search near where the pags of poo were last seen. Whenever you find a tile that appears empty but will not let you place the chair there, you have found an invisible stuck object. Drop one of the stuck object removers on the tile. It looks like a yellow box with a nuclear symbol on it. Check all of the suspect tiles on your lot. When you go into live mode, the stuck object remover will disappear and delete anything that is on the same tile. You will get a pop-up message stating exactly what was deleted.

When it does "kick in" correctly, the sales icon will be showing in his queue just like when you manually assign him to be salesman. There have been several times that it didn't seem to "take" and I would just give up and issue the sales command. Either way, canceling the command lets you retake control of them.

I've also noticed that with the Managers that at the end of the day when I dismiss them, if I don't cancel out their queued command of sales, cashier, etc, that they keep working until I do.

The way it is working in my game is that you assign a job to the owner for the owner to do when you have stopped controlling him/her.

I assign unmanned owner to sales. Then I tell him to macro clean, eat a sandwich, use the bathroom, and restock the one expensive item that just sold. After issuing these commands, I personally leave my computer and go into my kitchen for a sandwich. When I come back, the owner has finished his list of tasks and is now happily making sales pitches to the customers.

I play with free will on. I'm not sure how much time has to pass from the time you issue your last order and the time they let the controller take over.

I didn't know you hang out there. I can go there to look. I'm still using your default alien skin replacements. They've been a standard in my game for a long time. I'm looking forward to your replacement defaults of these pets.

Will you be uploading them to share with us?

Is this still needed if the custom skins are default?

For some reason the last version I installed seems to be ignoring hygiene needs until they are critical and they have the green stink wafting from them. I'm using standard Maxis fixtures.

I don't know if this will fix Witch's weird parenting problem or not but Two Jeffs has Puppy-Kitten Parentage Fix which addresses issues with weird pet parenting.

That's a possibility. I don't know enough about the inner workings to know. But I know that in my game Monique's computer is working normally and this hack actually does load in last.

I've had that conflict every since I first installed this mod. But Monique's computer has continued to function normally and the Sims have actually stopped having fits over the chair, whereas with Monique's computer alone they would still have fights over the chair, apparently blind to the fact that there is already a Sim sitting there.

If you are having jump bugs, you should turn on testing cheats and send the log to the appropriate modder or post it in the Podium for someone here to look at.

I actually read them as I was adding them to the appropriate mod. (Yeah me!)

OOPS!

You did such a wonderful job of providing all these RTFM's that I just hate to mention this....


Many of them are wrong. Each RTFM that is in error, is for the mod that is alphabetically to it's right. For example, fasterbuyclothes is actually the RTFM for FFSdebugger.

Alphabetically, the errors seem to begin with commlightson, which actually contains the text for Community Lot Skilling, and goes through marriage-postmortum.  Missingmanager fix to the end of the alphabet appear to be correct, although I haven't gone through every single one to confirm this.

Today I post this error on behalf of my daughter. We each have our own Windows account, and therefore our own Sims2 folders.  Whenever I update my hacks folder I copy it into her account so that I never have to worry about her having problems because of not having updates.

That said, I am not having the following errors occur in my account, although I think that this error is referring to cinematics, which I have disabled in my game.

The following 2 errors occured while she had her family in the family bin and attempted to move them into a lot. There are 2 errors here, from her trying to move her family into 2 different lots. The lots crashed just after the sims were being shown in front of the house, but before the screen was 100% loaded.

Her third reload of the game allowed her to move the family into a 3rd lot.

I have noplayable shoppers and don't have a bit of trouble hiring a playable that I want.

Just be on your owned lot, pick up the phone and invite the sim over. They come to the lot and start behaving like a shopper. Walk over to them and hire them. They start working right away.

You can also invite them "after hours" but I once had some problems with this. Some items saw the playable as an employee, while other items did not. (The list of employees with badge info, BRY controller, the phone, etc) So I made her quit and rehired her during open hours and had no problem. I only tried this once, so I cannot be sure that my problem was actually caused by her being hired while the shop was closed.

@echo off
REM See README.TXT for editing info.
.\update-hacks.bat "rsync://synczone.no-ip.org/ffs/" "ofb" "/hacks/" "'/cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings/Owner/My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Downloads/'"

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads

The reason nothing was updated was because I have the Downloads folder. In it I have Hacks subfolder. Then each and every MATY hack is in its own subfolder right next to its RTFM.

It would probably be a major nightmare to add all those lines for each subfolder, and then a new line again whenever a new mod is released. And I definately don't want to dump all of my mods into one folder.  I think most of the other people here are obsessive as I am about subfoldering all their stuff.

Oh, I checked for the .off extention but the only ones I found were the ones that I had set that way myself.

The last few days I have had errors while Caffeinating. It isn't consistent. A Sim, living alone, may start Caffeinating and then on the 3rd or 4th refill generate the error.  I got a similar error once when I first told a Sim to caffeinate, but most of the time the error comes after they have had a few.

I didn't save all the errors. Sometimes it occurs on an owned comm lot with an employee, other times it happens with a Sim at home alone. Resetting makes the sim stop, then I can regive the caffeinate order and he can finish without errors.

And of course I wouldn't attempt to caffeinate a sim without a properly configured BUY installed.

I bravely stepped into the waters and tried this out.

First I fixed the startup file as directed. Then I ran the program. It said 123 files to consider.  Wrote 86 bytes. Read 3826 bytes. 1564.8 bytes/sec. Total size is 1,203,289 speedup is 307.59.
Press any key to continue...which closes the cmd prompt.

I scanned my folder and found no .bak files. I checked all my mods and none were modified today except for macrotastics which I had updated earlier today manually.

So what is this 86 bytes that got written to my computer?

Is the program able to navigate subfolders within the downloads folder?

Maybe I don't understand this and the other business mods I'm using from here (and only from here), but I'm not so sure this is working right. Most likely I'm doing something wrong.

I started 2 businesses and once I had them up to level 10 I started checking in from home. But each day they have made a little less than the day before. The oddest part is that they are making the same amount or almost the same as each other. 

These numbers are not exact, but it went something like this:

Bus 1     Bus2
3215        10   (ran over and changed stuff at bus 2 and worked a few more days)
2586     2586
2254     2254
1956     1958

So is it supposed to be like this? There was one day I forgot to check in, so I expected penalization for that, but is it an accumulative penalty?

These are my business mods:

anti business decay
business runs you
remote business fix
finish at register fix
missing manager fix
no lame hires
no offer cheap
no playable shoppers
relevant wages
remote business fix
swindlers list

I think the acceptance of the gender question is set too high.

I had a sim whose relationship to the other sim was 75/54. But yet she still refused to answer the gender pref question. By the time their relationship is this high, I've usually figured out on my own what their pref is and the question becomes useless. Because by this stage in the relationship I've already asked "Do you like what you see?". If the answer is yes but they refuse ALL advances (and they aren't already in a relationship) then it is pretty clear they aren't interested in that sim's gender.

Other times they refuse to answer the question even if they just had sex with that sim.

In fact, they get turned down so often for the question that I've given up trying and just use the adjuster from ACR to find out.

Yes, I do have relevent wages installed. In fact, I put it in before I even ran the game with OFB installed.

And what about the crafting station problem?