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Warning: Non-Tech-Savvy Suggestion/Just A Thought

Have you tried using a No-CD crack to boot your game? The one at the end of this thread may be worth a shot, just to see if the same message pops up or if not using EA's .exe/launcher bypasses whatever is throwing the error.

"You're" is not possessive. Here to help.

I'm not sure why he would have spawned without these, if there's any problem there, but you might try change-appearance-anyone(1b) by Dizzy. I believe it's in anthology2-seasons.zip. This hack lets you use a Maxis or sufficiently updated cc mirror to select any sim's makeup/hair/clothing/jewelry (clothing/jewelry choices are limited to what's in the wardrobe of the active sim). Also, the target needs to be on the lot to appear among the "change appearance of..." options when you click the mirror, so this would likely have to be done on a community lot. I haven't tried to change my UC's appearance with this, but it's worked well for countless townies, baristas, professors, witches, and other game-generated types in need of a touch-up.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. Hours Days downloading drivers, etc. Moved the crack. Solved. After doing something right the first fourteen times, I had assumed I got it right on the fifteenth. I assumed incorrectly.

Trying a different crack gets me the exact same error, so that's probably not it. (And yes, my box is 64-bit too.)

Thinking I may have to go through the whole, tedious uninstall/reinstall routine with fingers crossed and hope for the best (unless anyone else has an idea?). That'll have to wait until tonight, though, when I've had a lot more sleep and slightly less beer. And I don't know if this'll find an answer here, but I'm not eager to necromance another thread over this same installation... Since I'm planning to use clean/empty templates, does anyone know if that makes a difference in whether I install to Program Files x86, Program Files, or some other location? There was some talk about problems there in the Clean/Empty Hood Templates thread, but I wasn't sure if there was a definitive answer for it.

This is an error that pops up within seconds of double-clicking the startup icon. I can see how triggering the screen saver might be problematic if the game were taking half an hour to load all my CC or something, but this error pops right away.

To the scary necro dude, it seems silly to start a new thread on this same subject when this one's just halfway down the front page.

I'm on a 2-month-old rig running Windows 7. Have just installed TS2 and all EPs and SPs (except for TSS). And I am getting the "failed to enumerate a DirectX9 compatible graphics blah blah blah" when I attempt to start the game.

My video card is a NVIDIA GeForce GT 320. Its drivers, and my directx (11, which insists it's backward-compatible), are all updated to the most recent versions. Dxdiag finds no problems. Trying to let the Device Manager update the card's drivers agrees it's already up to date. I've been researching this problem for several hours now, and none of the recommended steps has helped (telling the game to run in XP sp2 compatibility mode, dl/run dxwebsetup, aforementioned dxdiag, and other "download and run this to update the stuff that you've already updated" options). I've also specifically instructed the sims2ep9.exe I'm using to run the program as Administrator, as if that might have helped. I've even made sure my sound card was up to date, as one site said the error was not actually about graphics but was instead a directx 9 audio thing needed by K&B (and TSS), though buggered if I know why I have 4 different NVIDIA High Definition Audio controllers...

A couple of minor setup items that may or may not be an issue--
1) My game is all store-bought and installed from the actual discs, and I'm attempting to boot with the No-CD+Dizzy's portrait hack for MG, posted by Crash at the end of this thread. This worked just peachy for me with XP sp2. Has anyone here noticed any difference with this method in Win7? (I'm aware the original portrait-regerating fix is Dizzy's and is from off-site, but his original seems to be for cracked/dl copies only. To my knowledge the aforementioned thread is the only place to find a "starter" that both bypasses the Launcher (thus avoiding activating SecuROM) and cuts out that stupid portrait regen.) No idea why this would affect "enumerating a directx 9 compatible graphics blah blah", but I'm running out of ideas.
2) The game was installed to "Program Files (x86)" instead of just plain old Program Files. Should this matter?

I'm not sure what constructive options I really have now for getting TS2 to work on this machine. I can try starting without the No-CD/portrait thing, using the game's Launcher instead, thus getting SecuGoop all over my system, but I'm hesitant to do that for obvious reasons, especially when it's such a long shot. Or I can take the advice directly above this post and spend what's left of my night and spend it uninstalling and reinstalling the entire game from scratch again, crossing my fingers and hoping that this magically solves the problem. I do not love this option even a little bit, but if it's the only thing that works... And if I take that option, should I allow it to install to Program Files x86 again or direct it to plain old Program Files this time?

Any other constructive ideas?

Some quick-but-twisty Google-Fu found "No Autonomous Punch U Punch" Me in Monique's No Autonomous Hacks over at MtS2. It's been several years since they've been updated, but there are no comments about it not working anymore. There are several no-autonomy hacks/mods in the collection but none for RPS that I could see.

Separate from the 'no autonomous socials' fight-eliminating multi-mod, Squinge also has a standalone No Autonomous Rock, Paper, Scissors. It's with the EP3 mods and was updated in 2007. No idea if it still works, but if Monique's stuff from '07 is still working it might be worth a try.

If you had, in fact, checked everything (even once, let alone twice), the problem would have been solved. What you did, however, was check everything that you could think of. Fortunately imyourboy was able to think of more "everythings" than you were.

novelty, thanks for the suggestions; unfortunately, I'd already tried them, having worn out whatever google-fu I possess before posting this. Alt+PrntScrn didn't do it, nor did Ctrl+Alt+PrntScrn, and the shortcut is always my own on the desktop. Win7 just insists I'm 'shrooming when I try to add the -w for "windowed mode" at the end of it. Since I don't use a laptop, I don't know if the Fn key solutions work or not.

The reason I've been trying to run it in windowed mode is precisely because of that phrase "active window" in the Alt+PrntScrn recommendation. I figured that since it wasn't capturing full-screen game shots (I tried in another game, just to rule out the possibility that it was something about my TS2 configuration that it didn't like), it might cooperate if the game were in an actual window. Unfortunately, that's also proving to be a challenge to accomplish. If it were capping other games, I'd be willing to entertain the wacky notion that it's something about my shortcut leading to the noCD instead of the "proper" .exe, but running from that infectious .exe wouldn't be an option anyway.

FRAPs is proving, so far, to be an acceptable work-around for the specific shots I'm taking right now, so thanks for the link, Moonshires. I'm still hunting, though, for that elusive way to cap and drop directly into Photoshop without having to use windowed mode (not that I can get that to work anyway), but I'm wondering if it's just not doable yet in Win7.

I was trying it outside the quotes (it's just quoted above for grammerz), but Win7 still insisted it knew better than I and refused to accept the change.

I'll take a peek at FRAPs, thanks. I'd prefer being able to copy it to the clipboard and just plonk it into Photoshop from there, but that sounds better than the wad of nothing I'm getting now.

Having just been forcibly upgraded to Windows 7 and reinstalling TS2, I'm unable to use PrintScreen to take a screen capture to paste into Pshop or Paint. What ends up pasted instead is a shot of the desktop itself.

Searching the web, it seems the suggested solution for this is to run the game in windowed mode. I really don't want to play windowed, but it seems I don't have the option anyway. The usual "-w" at the end of the shortcut path now returns a "Hey, that's not the path!" error in Windows 7. It will not accept the change.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a PrintScreen method that works in Win7? Or barring that, a way to get windowed mode to work so that I can at least take these pics for now?

That's what I thought of when you mentioned the motive drain. I have no idea why the switcheroo with the familiar, unless the game counted the tux cat as home already, what with being right there in the portal, and decided to whip the witch's familiar (as the family pet that wasn't currently "there") onto the lot and see if that simmered things down.

Could have been a possible result of the tux cat being stuck "off-lot" at the portal?

If you need to do further Googling on this, fairy, I'd recommend searching specifically for "NVIDIA drivers" and not just "updates". NVIDIA's graphics cards are notorious for causing this sort of problem in TS2, and it seems the drivers are almost always to blame. Either updating or rolling back to a previous one usually does rectify the problem.

(It couldn't hurt to hit that fan with a little compressed air, though, just to make sure the overheating isn't due to a simple buildup of household dust.)

I don't remember which fell pregnant first, the dad or the bitch, but before those pregnancies there were just 5 in the house. Does anyone know if pet litter size is determined at conception, or if it's rolled randomly at spawning?

Interesting! I guess the operative phrase there is, "assuming you could even get such a move-in to occur". Would an un-modded game, then, balk at the move? Seems much more EAxis' style to allow the move-in and have the sim sit pregnant for eternity, rather than do something as sensible as anticipate a problem.

In an un-modded game, I would say no.

I had a family that consisted of a mother, father, daughter, and two dogs. The father and the bitch were pregnant simultaneously. She went into "labor" first on his due-date and had a litter of 3 puppies, bringing the number of lot occupants up to 8. The father remained pregnant until the daughter aged up and left for uni, after which he spawned as scheduled.

For further improvement, the italicized phrase should read "over innocent customers' eyes" or, if SonnetCeles means only to refer to a single customer, "over an/the innocent customer's eyes". Additional nitpicking reveals that all three letters at the end of "deviantART"  should be capitalized.

I can't imagine how it would; with whom would you file it?

The word is "down".

The word is "you're".

Possessive pronouns do not take an apostrope (my, your, his, her, its, our, your, their).
Pronoun/"to be" contractions do (I'm, you're, he's, she's, it's, we're, you're, they're).

audcand gets extra shame-y demerits for combining the error with a typo. 

That gave me a nice case of the roffles: "You can totally trust us because we say you can. No, srsly!"