Oops I Broke It!

[Ennarys]

My first mistake was paying $19.95 for H&M Stuff.  My second mistake was buying the digital version when I know that I have a penchant for uninstalling and reinstalling. My third mistake was uninstalling. I backed up the files first (perhaps the only thing that I may have done right) and returned them to their original location, but now H&M Stuff no longer shows up in game.  For some reason I expected EA Link (where I got H&M Stuff) to remember that I had in fact paid for the pack already. They do not.  I refuse to compound my many mistakes by buying the damn thing again. Can anyone tell me how to make this work?

[J. M. Pescado]

Purchasing Spyware
Is Never A Good Idea
Try The Pirate Bay

[morriganrant]

Like Pes said. Get utorrent. Then go torrent the stupid stuff pack.

[Ennarys]

Like Pes said. Get utorrent. Then go torrent the stupid stuff pack.

I'm sorry to be such a noob but I don't know how to torrent something. I Googled utorrent and Pirate Bay, but I don't understand what to do


EDIT: I fiddled with it and I think I've got it figured out.  Thank you for your help.

[morriganrant]

make sure you get a decent uploader to downloader ratio. You need a decent number of seeders in comparison to lechers. Its pretty straight forward.
after you get it all downloaded you can come back to this thread and ask about the rest. you will either end up downloading a whole bunch of rar files (which you select all and extract all "here" they will all extract to be one iso file). an Iso file or bin and cue files. You will need daemon tools to mount it. Daemon tools is a virtual cd drive. The computer treats it like a normal cd drive. You mount the iso file with it which would be like putting a cd into a drive. or if its a bin and cue file you mount the bin file (or i could be wrong and its the other one, you'll figure it out)

[B]

if its a bin and cue file you mount the bin file (or i could be wrong and its the other one, you'll figure it out)

Just make sure the .bin and .cue files are in the same directory and browse to it with DT.  The emulator will know what to do.  Technically, the .cue extension is only useful when burning an audio cd, since it contains the information for the track listing (times, order etc).  However, many groups use the .cue/.bin format for data discs even though there will only be one "track". 

If you find yourself reinstalling packs often, it may be worth your while to pick up a burner like Nero and making an actual back-up disc (blank cds are a dime a dozen).  This will allow you to keep a copy of the install media without wasting perfectly good disc space on an image file. 

[Ennarys]

Thanks for the advice. Right now my big problem seems to be the Key that needs to be entered during install. There is an info file included but when I try to open it I get a message stating that the system was unable to open the file probably because the file is either corrupted or of an unknown type. Since it happens with others that I tried to download instead, I am guessing that it's an unknown file type. I don't know what to do about that.

[kuronue]

Thanks for the advice. Right now my big problem seems to be the Key that needs to be entered during install. There is an info file included but when I try to open it I get a message stating that the system was unable to open the file probably because the file is either corrupted or of an unknown type. Since it happens with others that I tried to download instead, I am guessing that it's an unknown file type. I don't know what to do about that.

I never did anything TS2, but I did Life Stories and Pet Stories and both had one of those info files too. not sure what it's for, but leave it alone. Try going to the disk and doing "explore" on it; sometimes there's a keygen under a folder called "crack" or something similar. Otherwise, go to the page you got it from, there's often a key listed in the comments because someone went "OMG I NEED A KEY!!!". If neither option works, you'll need a keygen.

[Ennarys]

More great advice, thanks. Now my CD drive will no longer recognize that my seasons CD is in the drive when I try to load it up
I'm full of stupid problems; I'd make a lousy pirate. AAAR---*chokes on spit*

Any ideas for my new problem?

[witch]

Right click on the .nfo file and open it with Notepad. Your system thinks it's a system file.

It will give you a key most likely buried in the text round about the middle.

You will be able to look on the virtual CD, there's often a folder labelled 'Crack', or maybe a folder arrived where you extracted the .rar files, check there too. You will need to put the Sims2EP5.exe file in the Program Files folder where you have installed the game.

This is mine: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSBin

Rename the original Sims2EP5.exe to Sims2EP5.old and leave it in the folder, you will need to restore it if you patch or install another EP.
Then put the cracked Sims2EP5.exe in that folder.

Good to go.

[Ennarys]

It works Thank you all so much

*Ennarys huddles in lifeboat dripping wet*

If not for all of you I surely would have drowned!

[witch]

I ALWAYS double-click on the damned .nfo file and remember a nanosecond too late that the system will try to open it, my mind is trying to make my finger stop clicking but it's always too late. 

Enjoy your game.

[J. M. Pescado]

I just changed it so NFOs are always opened in notepad. I've never, not once, encountered a single use of that-OTHER-kind of NFO file. As far as I'm concerned, NFOs are text files to be viewed in NOTEPAD. Period. Set that file type to ALWAYS be opened by NOTEPAD, not whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is.

[Ennarys]

Will do.

[B]

More great advice, thanks. Now my CD drive will no longer recognize that my seasons CD is in the drive when I try to load it up
I'm full of stupid problems; I'd make a lousy pirate. AAAR---*chokes on spit*

Any ideas for my new problem?

I don't know if this is still an issue, but if it is you may need to remove the Daemon virtual drive and then reinstate it with a different drive letter.  Also, Nero has been known to occasionally bork the cd drive functionality.  The usual fix for this is to go into device manager (hit winkey+R and enter "devmgmt.msc" without quotes) and remove the drive.  It will reinstall when you reboot and tends to work without issues after that. 

[J. M. Pescado]

Actually, it's an issue of new systems being bitchy and refusing to run if it so much as sees Daemon. Get a hider program, like YASU, and you're good to go again.

[B]

I was under the impression EA still uses safedisc 1 which cannot blacklist any DT released since 3.47.   

[Ennarys]

More great advice, thanks. Now my CD drive will no longer recognize that my seasons CD is in the drive when I try to load it up
I'm full of stupid problems; I'd make a lousy pirate. AAAR---*chokes on spit*

Any ideas for my new problem?

I don't know if this is still an issue, but if it is you may need to remove the Daemon virtual drive and then reinstate it with a different drive letter.  Also, Nero has been known to occasionally bork the cd drive functionality.  The usual fix for this is to go into device manager (hit winkey+R and enter "devmgmt.msc" without quotes) and remove the drive.  It will reinstall when you reboot and tends to work without issues after that. 

After your post I checked my disc drive just in case and it was borked.
Then I followed your instructions and now it works fine.
Thank you again!

[KatEnigma]

I was under the impression EA still uses safedisc 1 which cannot blacklist any DT released since 3.47.   

As of Seasons, they were still using safedisc, but they changed versions with Seasons- as was obvious by the game refusing to actually start on the first attempt - it hangs during the loading, the usual safedisc borkedness. I get so tired of having to bring up task manager to end the program and try again (and there's no hacked exe for the patch(es) )

We also need to be prepared for BV- they switched to Securom for PetStories, which is breaking the game even more for people who've bought it legally.  I imagine that BV will use it too.

[Madame Mim]

I refused to install the patches and kept using the MATY fixes. Then (when I installed H&M stuff) it forced me into the patches. I was livid. So I tried replacing the patched exe with my original no cd exe and it ran. I don't know how much of the patch this disables (or not) but you can still use the no cd on a patched game.

[B]

We also need to be prepared for BV- they switched to Securom for PetStories, which is breaking the game even more for people who've bought it legally.  I imagine that BV will use it too.

Securom must be destroyed.  Not only does it give me tremendous headaches when trying to "back-up" game's that I purchased legally, but it also doesn't play nicely with my system and causes huge memory holes to appear where none existed before.  I generally (and against my normal inclination) purchase Sims games because they are slightly more enjoyable than the usual riff raff out there, but if EA goes over to the dark(er) side with Bon Voyage I'll be forced to wait for Hatred or one of the other groups to zap the protection for me.  It's too bad really.  They think using this crap will protect their investment, but instead it will force a paying customer to aquire the game some other way.

[witch]

What do you mean by memory holes? Something is done to your system or the game develops a memory leak?

[B]

What do you mean by memory holes? Something is done to your system or the game develops a memory leak?

Explorer develops a memory leak when I try to delete certain files, and I generally need to kill the Windows session to get my processor back under control.  I say securom causes the memory holes (leading to the aforementioned leaks) because I only ever notice the problem when I have recently (and foolishly) messed around with something utilizing securom protection.  Apparently the protection scheme prevents me from deleting the files until I remove all extensions it placed on my machine.  Why it does this is a mystery.

[witch]

Root kit shit?

[B]

Root kit shit?

The same sort of thing.  Securom installs some files (I have most of my problems with two of them) that watch certain .exes for reasons unknown to me.  Thus, when I try to delete said executables, my system hangs as explorer tries to figure out what is accessing the files.  In the end, it doesn't see anything since the Securom extensions are located in the same temp directory with the files I am trying to eradicate (and apparently Windows doesn't search the Temp folders for access violations).   Now that I know what to look for, it's not a big deal in practice, but I am still upset by the principle of the matter. 

On a related note, I've found that if I use CrapCleaner to ditch my temp files everything is gravy.  I guess a little freeware app is more powerful than Windows' own file browser.