Sims 2 University Installation Stalls

[LouisaB]

I hate to repeat the problems that others seem to have but I have gone through the messages and can't seem to find the answer to this problem.

I have just purchased The Sims 2 and all the current expansion packs. Never got them before as my old computer would not have run them. But I have upgraded to a new machine and thought I would see what I have been missing.

Installed The Sims 2 with no problem (DVD edition) and played it once just to test there were no problems.

When I tried to install the University expansion pack it had two problems. The first time it did okay until it got to the part where it asked for the Sims 2 disc. Then it said it couldn't complete and proceeded to uninstall the expansion pack.

I thought perhaps it was just a glitch, restarted the machine etc and tried again. This time it didn't even get that far and stalled at 79%, just after inserting the second disc. And that is as far as I can get.

The machine is definitely up to the specifications. Background tasks were shut down and since I had only played the original game once to test it there were no downloads, hacks or anything else to hinder it.

I see a lot of reference to patches but for some reason the site to download them does not load and I get page not found. This is thesims2.ea.com site. Incidentally I could not register the games when the time came either as it could not connect to the site even though I made sure I was online at the time.

I don't think it is a problem with the second disc as it did work the first time, at least it did read the disc even if there was a later problem.

Any ideas on what might be the solution for this problem please?

[KatAnubis]

I hate to repeat the problems that others seem to have but I have gone through the messages and can't seem to find the answer to this problem.

I have just purchased The Sims 2 and all the current expansion packs. Never got them before as my old computer would not have run them. But I have upgraded to a new machine and thought I would see what I have been missing.

Installed The Sims 2 with no problem (DVD edition) and played it once just to test there were no problems.

When I tried to install the University expansion pack it had two problems. The first time it did okay until it got to the part where it asked for the Sims 2 disc. Then it said it couldn't complete and proceeded to uninstall the expansion pack.

I thought perhaps it was just a glitch, restarted the machine etc and tried again. This time it didn't even get that far and stalled at 79%, just after inserting the second disc. And that is as far as I can get.

The machine is definitely up to the specifications. Background tasks were shut down and since I had only played the original game once to test it there were no downloads, hacks or anything else to hinder it.

I see a lot of reference to patches but for some reason the site to download them does not load and I get page not found. This is thesims2.ea.com site. Incidentally I could not register the games when the time came either as it could not connect to the site even though I made sure I was online at the time.

I don't think it is a problem with the second disc as it did work the first time, at least it did read the disc even if there was a later problem.

Any ideas on what might be the solution for this problem please?

There are some spec specific quirks, so even though you say it's got the right specs, if you could list them it would help.

It almost sounds like you have a problem with drivers. Even new machines may not have the proper drivers for their video cards especially. That's another reason why it's a good idea to list your specs.

You check your specs by going to Start, clicking on Run, and typing in dxdiag in the box. Once you've activated it you will see several tabs.

The General or System Information tab has some of the information (mixed in with a lot of things you don't necessarily need):
operating system
processor (make/model and "speed" in ghz or mhz)
memory (system RAM, "short term memory")
direct X version

The Display or Display Devices tab has:
card name
chip type (if different from the card name)
display memory or "approx. total memory" (also known as video RAM or video memory)

To get your harddrive (long term) memory, go to My Computer, right click on your harddrive, go to properties and look at the total drive memory/space and the free drive memory/space.

[LouisaB]

The Sims 2 updates site appears to be up and running now so I am going to do a complete uninstall and try again with the patch included and then try to install University.

The specs however if that is the problem and you have any ideas are as follows.

Windows XP - edition is listed as Professional although it was supposed to be the Media Centre Edition so your guess is as good as mine as to what they did there.
Intel Pentium 4 Processor 3.4Ghz (2 CPUs)
Memory - 1024MB
Hard drive free space is currently 446GB
Running the DVD edition of the original game in a 16x DVD-ROM drive and the CD expansion pack in the same drive.
Graphics card - 256MB nVidia GeForce 6800
DirectX - version 9.0c

I will come back and edit if the reinstall and the patch solves it.

It didn't.

I tried with the latest driver for my graphics card and without.

I tried it after installing the patch and without installing the patch. And yes I got the DVD patch and not the CD one.

I have uninstalled the game completely and started all over again with every combination of drivers and patches and I am precisely where I was 24 hours ago. Stalled installation at the following point.

TSData\Control\control1.dat (always at 78/79%)

I have seen other people saying leave it and it will install. 30 minutes with not even the light on the DVD drive lit up I would have thought would be adequate time to let it install.

[LouisaB]

For some reason there is no edit button on my last post. Just got it working by manually installing it from the hard drive. Thanks for responding to my message above KatAnubis