How to get rid of character files?

[Lythdan]

Ok, first I have to admit I am a glutton for punishment. I left my sims in free will for a few minutes, since I was on the phone, getting distracted. Anyway, I got back and realised that the game was running slowly. Very slowly. I realised what was happening and went to quit, but accidently said yes to save...anyway, to cut a long story short, I looked through SimPE and now have about ninety gardeners...how do I go about deleting these unwanted additions?

In the past I've only really used SimPE for editing memories, and bringing back sims like Skip and Michael...so I probably need it explained to me real simply, I'm not really good at things like this.

[C.S.]

Refer to this thread for the gardener spam and this for deleting character files.

[Lythdan]

Now I know what to get rid of, how do I go about getting rid of it? These sims have never interacted with other sims, thus don't have the problem of family trees and memories. All of them have the 'had first kiss with mystery sim memories' apart from the very last few.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Just open the Neighbourhood, then open simBrowser.  As you scroll down through these files, on the right hand side of the browser you will see the file numbers of the gardeners that you don't want.  (Easiest if you first click on the household column so that all the NPCs are together). You may have to move the slider bar across to open up the File column.  Just make sure that you don't copy down the numbers of the original gardeners, then simply make a list of all those unwanted files.  After that, close simPE, wait a few moments until it has shut down and released the files, then open your documents folder, open EAGames/TheSims2/Neighbourhoods then open the neighbourhood which has the problem, then open the Characters folder.  There you will see all the files for the neighbourhood, and all you need to do is to delete the file numbers you have copied down.

[Lythdan]

Ok, I deleted the 97 extra gardeners. I opened up simPE again, and they're still there, just as 'unknowns'. However, they are not physically in my character folders. Is this normal?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Do you mean in the Sim Relatiions panel, or in the Neighbourhood Memory?  If neighbourhood Memory, that seems to happen with every deleted sim, but maybe when the file number is replaced they will go, I'm not sure.

[Lythdan]

Do you mean in the Sim Relatiions panel, or in the Neighbourhood Memory?  If neighbourhood Memory, that seems to happen with every deleted sim, but maybe when the file number is replaced they will go, I'm not sure.

They're in the Sim Relations panel, the Neighbourhood Memory, and the Sim Description. Guess I'll just have a few births and see what happens. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you rebooted your computer since taking those files out?

[Lythdan]

Actually, I don't think I did. I do know I rebooted my computer halfway through the afternoon, since my internet connection was being iffy. But I think it was before I deleted the files.

[ZephyrZodiac]

That's probably it, then.  SimPE keeps all the initial info it had the first time you load it, at least, that's my experience.  Which is why it takes a while to load the first time, then loads instantly if you go back to it later.

[ari_]

in the Character Browser, right-click on all these new Unknowns, and hit 'delete'. Then save the neighborhood package.