Warning to all OFB players and Those who plan on getting the EP

[Bangelnuts]

 I know most here who have OFB carefully removed hacks,custom careers etc.... prior to install of OFB.I went through a endless loading loop and frozen sims last night after deleting my test neighborhood.only lack of time stopped me from being stupid and tossing my DL folder
  Here is the warning for those few here who are lazy like me and dont always scan downloaded lots for hacks.
the most Common conflicting hack for OFB that rides along with lots is the old version of the phone line controller and it will cause frozen sims. I ran Clean install 3x last night looking and triple checking for careers and hacks the culprits turned out to be the mailbox hack(ugh I hate that hack) and the old version of the phone line controller and a left over custom career.MORAL :SCAN YOUR DOWNLOADED LOTS AND DL FOLDER WITH CLEAN INSTALL   the sad thing for me is I have no clue right this second which lot has the tag along hacks .
    Happy Simming and watch out for old versions of hacks to tag along with downloaded lots the y will cause frozen sims

[Motoki]

Bangel you should always always ALWAYS scan ANY lot before putting it in your game. They can contain stuff that can mess up your game even if you don't have this episode. You could end up with Candace the dishwasher or a non EP ready career or who knows what?

It only takes a minute to scan with clean installer and there's even a button on it to deselect everything but the lot itself.

[akatonbo]

I'm picky enough about lots that I've actually never downloaded one that had a hack attached to it, but the reason I KNOW that is because I've never downloaded one and not run it through Clean Installer.

[Li'l Brudder]

I don't download lots very often.  Twice a year maybe?  No problem for me.

[Motoki]

It doesn't matter, you still need to check them. Even if I trust the person who made the lot implicitly, I still check. Anyone can make a mistake and it only takes one lot for something nasty to slip in.

[angelyne]

To insure that, I suggest you make the sims2pack clean installer, the default program from opening *.sims2pack files.  This way you will always know exactly what is going into your game without you even trying.

To do that right click on a packaged house, choose open with ...choose program.  Select teh Sims2Pack clean installer and check the box that says "always choose the selected program to open this kind of file".  That's it.  From now on when you double click on a packaged house, the sims2pack clean installer will open.

[Motoki]

Installing with clean installer instead of the default Maxis one is also a good idea for objects by the way. Clean Installer will retain their names instead of scrambling them up into hex code. So you'll end up with something like BunnyBear.package instead of 22cc53262df08ac35bd2224cd.package.

Makes things MUCH easier to find when you are trying to figure out what is what in your downloads folder.

[akatonbo]

And Clean Installer doesn't have that problem where it thinks you don't have the right EPs.

(I subfolder obsessively, if not quite as obsessively as JadeElliot, so I mostly know what is in my Downloads folder and where it is.)

[Bangelnuts]

I found the lot using clean instal and stripped the tag alongs from it. it was a lot downloaded from MTS2 right before I got OFB. I dont download from the exchange anymore

[ZephyrZodiac]

I usually just use my own lots these days, and they all get checked out in a vanilla build game before I use them.

[vilia]

Installing with clean installer instead of the default Maxis one is also a good idea for objects by the way. Clean Installer will retain their names instead of scrambling them up into hex code. So you'll end up with something like BunnyBear.package instead of 22cc53262df08ac35bd2224cd.package.

Makes things MUCH easier to find when you are trying to figure out what is what in your downloads folder.

Thank you!  I wish I had known about this earlier .  I can now know what I have and choose which subfolder I want it to extract to rather than just the download folder.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I always use the multisims2pack installer for walls and floors for the same reason.  But since it works by being dragged into the folder where the files are, the number of times I've nearly ended up deleting the darn thing by mistake................

[cwykes]

......r and there's even a button on it to deselect everything but the lot itself.

That one is really useful when you have packaged a lot you made and want to put a second copy in your game or in another hood.  If you don't use it, you'll be putting a duplicate copy of half your custom content in your downloads folder!  I usually open the packaged lot with clean installer, click on the house button and save the package with a new file name.  (It screws up if you try and overwrite the existing file.)

I find duplicates pretty regularly in my game - clicking on the header for the number column in cleaninstaller to put the duplicates next to each other is a nice feature as well.