Free Time won't uninstall

[amjoie]

I need to temporarily uninstall Free Time so I can work on some BV files in SimPE for my Mac game. I tried to uninstall with the XP change/remove. I pressed the button and it blinked after a brief pause. Then the Free Time icon disappeared from the list. So I thought it was finished uninstalling. I put the BV Sims 2 into documents, and put in the BV disk. A warning said I was using the wrong version of the game, and to put in the Free Time disk. I restarted my computer. Tried again. Same thing. I opened up the XP add/remove program, and when the list populated, no Free Time listed.

So I thought I would just start all over. I uninstalled all the expansions. When I tried to uninstall Sims 2 itself, a warning says I have other expansions installed and must uninstall them first before uninstalling Sims 2. So I tried installing University again, to see if it would overwrite whatever and then I uninstalled that. But no dice. I even tried putting a backup copy of the Fee Time folder back into the programs folder to see if that would populate the uninstall list so I could uninstall again. But no. I still get no uninstall option.

So where is the stupid computer reading from, that it thinks Free Time is still installed? What can I manually delete to get the computer to believe that Free Time is gone, so I can reinstall the expansions up to BV and start the game up with the BV disk?

[vikitty]

You need to go into the registry and delete the Free Time values for it to be completely uninstalled.

[amjoie]

How do I do that? I know how to type in regedit in the cmd box, but once I do that, I don't know what files/folders to look for, and exactly what to delete.

[Lum]

There's a program called CCleaner that gets rid of outdated registry entries of all sorts of crap you once installed, then uninstalled. You could try that. As usual, be sure to backup the registry before use.

[amjoie]

I don't know how to back up the registry. Where is it found, so that I can make a backup?

I am not sure that Free Time was completely uninstalled, because the uninstaller may have only partially finished the job. I never got a notice saying the program had been uninstalled, like I did when I uninstalled the other expansions. So a program designed to remove outdated info may not read it as totally gone.

I would like to learn how to do this, manually, in case it ever happens again. What files/folders, once I open regedit, hold the data that needs to be deleted? Exactly what data should be deleted?

 

[Lum]

Not sure about the incomplete uninstall, but for the registry, the CCcleaner program actually asks you if you would like to backup the registry, so its about clicking yes.

The long way is running regedit in the command thing. The registry editor should open. Under file, click export. Name your back-up, then save.

As for deleting, surf through registry under hkey_local_machine/software/EA Games. There should be Sims files there that shouldn't be there. There could be more such elsewhere, I really don't know, so keep surfing through the registry just in case.

If you had a bad boo-boo, open the registry editor and import the file you saved. That should undo the damage.

[amjoie]

That's what I needed, exactly. I easily found everything, and I think I know what to do, now. Also, I'm backed up, just in case. Many thanks!

[KatEnigma]

Sometimes I don't even know why I bother to use the uninstaller for Sims game. I end up doing a manual uninstall more often than not.

In the future, instead of downloading random programs which sometimes do more harm than good, it will be under HKeyLocalMachine>Software>EAGames

As for screwing up your computer, as long as you're only deleting game keys/folders, the worst that will happen is that you'll bork the game.