Out of order expansions Ok, so I bought Seasons a while ago and although I really love the snow, I'd really like a car or two as well. Seasons is the only EP I have and I've been thinking about getting nightlife - but from what I've heard I'll have to uninstall seasons first, install nightlife and then re-install seasons...right? And how do I uninstall seasons on a mac?
Oops. No!!! Don't uninstall Seasons, because your saved games will not be altered to cope without Seasons. The end result will be a disaster. I don't think that installing Nightlife after Seasons will cause serious problems. Of course if you want to start over with a fresh set of sims then by all means uninstall the WHOLE game and then reinstall it and the expansion in the proper order. (See below for my recommended routine for a clean reinstallation.) If you want to keep your existing sims then install Nightlife over Seasons and then back up the save game files. Then do my recommended uninstall routine. To make a clean start BEFORE DOING ANYTHING: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL DISCS AND SERIAL NUMBERS. First uninstall the installed expansion packs and then the base game The Sims 2. You may do this from the start menu items, or by using Control Panel >> Add/Remove programs. You can also use My Computer to browse to the various Sims 2 folders in Program files and double clicking on the Sims2_uninst.exe file. Next to be sure the game is totally removed, delete all the Program Files folders for The Sims 2 and the Expansions and Stuff packs you had installed. To be doubly sure the game is gone you can check the registry entries are removed: see this page for how to check that. After the game is removed, defrag your hard drive to optimise its performance before starting to install the game afresh. Once you have installed the game and all the expansion packs for which your retained saved games were created, you can copy your saved games files over the default ones created by the game's installer.
Ermm...it's a mac. I don't have a Start menu or My Computer or a Control Panel and .exe files don't work either.
Also, why will I have to uninstall something after i have both Nightlife and Seasons installed? Do you think I'll be safe just installing nightlife after Seasons anyway? I definitely want to keep my sims. Thanks for the help.
Um, oops. Sorry. Let me make that clear. I meant that if you decide the game needs to be re-installed then it is better to do a full clean up first. And that the reinstall advice I gave applies only if you have already installed Seasons and then Nightlife. The way The Sims 2 is run seems to be a lot more stable than the way The Original Sims worked. Expansions don't seem to need to be installed in order as much as it seemed to be needed in the past. The major reason we say install the stuff in order (if you have the chance) is because every expansion pack has an updater routine which tries to patch the already installed elements of the game. So when you install stuff in a different order there is a danger (slight) that the updater will crash or hang or fail to finish because it gets confused over dates and version numbers that didn't exist when it it was made. (This is not supposed to happen and it very rarely does, but when it does it is total bummer )
