Oh never mind.  I'll just find someplace that doesn't get it's kicks out of pitching attitude.

Somebody delete this.  I should have known better than to post it to begin with.

I started playing Sims 1 in August 2000.


Edited to add:
Now can someone who has a clue actually answer my question? 

I've been playing this game for 10 years now and never seen this.  I just shut down Sims 2 quite normally.  No crash, nothing.  Perfectly normal game.  I went to delete groups.cache and accessories.cache from my game folder and found a file called TSWebServer.ini in my Sims2 folder.  I've got all Eps and SPs.  I'm not running the noCD crack, I haven't added anything new since M&G came out.  I did a reinstall a few days ago, but nothing else outstanding.  Just the usual game, albeit with a lot less CC than I usually use. So I'm lost.

What the heck is it?  I put it on my desktop and am about to try starting the game to see what happens.

Kind of amazes me how the game has actions you never or rarely see and suddenly every fucking Sim in the game will start up.  It's like they have meetings behind our backs. 

And, yes, mine started doing the same thing all of a sudden.  And that was in a completely unhacked and patched game.  I have to lock all rooms with easels or every visitor will attempt to paint a masterpiece.   

The mummy head?  I wish it didn't show up in mine.  The damned thing turned up on every downloaded Sim in my bin.  I was finally able to delete every f'ing copy of it that had hidden in my downloads folder only by reinstalling and putting all my CC back in slowly so as to stomp on all the extra versions of it that had infested my downloads folder.  If I didn't know better I'd think it was a kind of virus.

 

Nope, nothing weird at all in my setup.  

And reinstalling is my next option, I guess.  I already reinstalled the new driver.  That was about the first thing I tried after restarting the system didn't work.

Edited to add:

A complete reinstall was the only answer.  I tried uninstalling/reinstalling M&G and the problem persisted, so I spent the day taking everything out and putting it back.  It runs OK for the moment, though the missing M&G icon reappeared, having renamed itself to the same name as a folder I'd made just after the last crash and my attempt to restart the game.  It turned up only after I'd uninstalled everything and had only gotten as far as reinstalling the base game.

So far everything works.

I'm sure I didn't do that.  I never minimize during startup--if it takes too long I read a book or something.  And in this case I only had some recolors in so startup takes about 5 minutes.  I did minimize when the game crashed, though.  It was the only way to exit the game.

And the problem persists even after shutting the computer down overnight. 

I am NOT using a noCD patch and the only info I can find on MATY on this problem mentions a problem with where that's installed, but that's obviously not the problem here.

I was trying to locate a bad recolor file via the binary system.  The game crashed, as I expected, but when I got back to desktop the shortcut icon to M&G Stuff was gone, so I made a new one and after I'd shifted half the files in the folder, deleted my .cache files, and tried to restart the game I got a "Failed to enumerate any DirectX 9 compatible graphics adapters in this system!"

I also tried renaming my MyDocuments/EA Games/Sims 2 file to see if that was the problem.

Now, the graphics adapter had been there and locatable maybe three minutes before.  I tried restarting, and cold booting.  I reinstalled the latest NVidia driver, and I even loaded up Oblivion to see if maybe the something had fried the graphics card.  It ran fine.  I cleaned the M&G DVD.  No luck.

I'm using Windows 7, with an NVidia GEForce 9800 GT.

AL first
M&G second

Never had a problem with it myself,

What the heck's "evil" about it?  It's stable, adds a bunch of new features like the roof slope slider and the stuff in the pack is actually pretty good looking.  Sure it's got SuckyRom, but everything after BV or Freetime has that so it's no worse than the others.

It's a brain washing thing.  I spent several years at a University that was bound and determined to make me into a High School English teacher despite my repeatedly explaining that my High School experiences had engendered a positive hatred for teenagers.  I escaped with a degree in pre-unemployment, but the training still kicks in every so often. 

I'm in therapy for it.

Look, I'm not part of the grammar gestapo, but that makes my teeth ache.  A friend cannot borrow you anything, they can only loan you stuff.  Remember this or you may be hurt by an hysterical old lady with aching teeth and, trust me it won't be any fun.

One of the few reasons I'd consider going back to Sims 1 is the Makin' Magic stuff.

But, yeah, lack of genetics is another big reason for avoiding the S3.  I like it when somebody's red hair pops up 3 generations down the line in an otherwise black-haired family.  That and the no personalities thing.  Quirks do not equate to personality.  All they seem to be is Stupid Sim trick generators.

Yep, still playing it several hours a day.  Haven't seen anything yet in the Puddings that is of any interest.  Ugly Sims, stupid chase around minigames, disappearing neighbors, and that's just what I can think of in my pre-caffinated state.

Sims 2 didn't take a fucking year to "mature".  I don't recall seeing "has anyone else dumped Sims 2" threads on every board I'm on after it came out, which I do for Sims 3.  Personally I suspect that Sims 3 was designed by juveniles who think that's the whole appeal of the game and it won't ever mature.

Judging from the picture it's not a "cake" emergency so much as a "Boston Cream Pie" emergency.

See here:  http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Massachusetts/boston_cream_pie.html

The drizzle of chocolate glaze and the cream filling are a dead give away--the strawberry is only meant to mislead the viewer to make the problem harder to solve.   Obviously your Sim is in crisis because there's no Boston Cream Pie available in the Base Game.  Off hand I have no idea what the solution is.

Are your empty apartments furnished?  If not the neighbors won't be able to use the facilities that aren't in common areas get to--bathrooms for instance.

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.   

Not recently.  Well, there was that teleporter accident, but we fixed that and the space-time continuum is back to normal, pretty much.  (No one really misses those 3 extra planets anyway.)

But I talk to myself all the time--

If it makes you feel any better, I had the graphics card on my then month old computer replaced because it over heated one night for no reason we could see.  We mentioned it to our Major Computer Geek friend and he immediately told us about the NVidia drivers problem.  Luckily the card was under warranty, but of course it was out of stock so the whole thing took four agonizing days to fix while I was stuck on my old computer. 

Bleh.

Which merely proves my point.

I tried Sims 3 at a friends house for an hour, and while it will save me a fortune in sleep aids, it takes too long to work and has far more annoying side effects.

But then  I've always played the game wrong.  I like doing a rotation. I hate having 3/4 of the neighborhood meet a boojum or something and disappear.  I understand there's some sort of button that means only 1/2 the neighborhood disappears when you're not looking.  And, if you don't mind updating Pescado's hack every 3 hours you can assure that only 1/4 of your neighborhood disappears at any given time.

And I still predict that EA is going to work very hard to make sure that 3rd party CC is becomes more and more difficult until it reaches the point that it's too much trouble.  It may be short-sighted of them but EA is rapidly getting the point of needing a white cane to approach it's customer base anyway.  From what I've seen all 3rd party CC appears to cease to work after each EP or SP as it is.

And I really detest bullies.

And, Inge dear, if the game is so great how come you're not playing it?

Because Shrek is ugly.  Mini-games are stupid.  And I don't like a game that plays itself.  I like designing shops and restaurants.

And what the fuck business is it of yours. teacozy brain?

Awhile back on some other site someone posted directions on how to reclassify objects as architectural details in build mode for those with--M&G or is it AL?  Anyway, said poster deleted his comments for some reason, and has disappeared.  No one on the site kept the post AFAIK, and right now I really want to reclassify some of the stuff that's under columns as Architectural details.

Can anyone help me out?  Thanks.