Never Re-install the Sims 2 again. alright there are 30 x pacs 20 stuff packs and 10 stories............. whose fed up with reinstalling them any time you have to reinstall your os???? well you don't have to anymore. im sure many of you may have tried to install the sims 2 or any other game on a secondary drive/partition and it didn't work after a re install of the os. It didn't work because there are registry entries that tie the games directory to your registry letting your os know the games location and that it is installed. It is possible to do it with your previously installed sims 2 by editing the locations in your .reg but it would be much simpler and easier for me to explain if you do one last install of all them. You want to set up the game on a back up drive\partition with the intiall install so the registry entries it makes are still going to be pointing to the right location. lets say the back up drive is D:\ Make a folder in it called games, in that folder make a folder called the sims 2. this will be the location you will install the orginal and all the xpacs too. once you have them all installed and working well go to: start\run Type: regedit hit enter. you are looking for 3 locations in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES, [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\ and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths once you locate these entries right click on them and click export on any and all of the sims 2 entry folders located here, this will give you a .reg that can be put into any computers registry just by running. you can right click on a .reg and push edit to open it in notepad and add all seperate .regs into one. This method does not just work the sims 2 but indeed all games, actually most games are easier because they dont have entries in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths" just "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\" Note: alot of games require c++ to be installed on a new os, it is usually installed with your game disc.... you will also want to back up your my documents folder as it has required game files for the Sims 2 just put it back in its old location after the os install Anyway when you are done you should have one .reg files that looks like this only with a set for each xpac not just the orginal im just showing you the ones for the orginal so I dont use 10 miles of the page with reg entries. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\Sims2.exe] "Game Registry"="SOFTWARE\\EA GAMES\\The Sims 2" "Restart"=dword:00000000 "Installed"=dword:00000001 @="d:\\Game Directories\\The Sims 2\\The Sims 2\\TSBin\\Sims2.exe" "Path"="d:\\Game Directories\\The Sims 2\\The Sims 2" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA GAMES\The Sims 2] "DisplayName"="The Sims 2" "Installed From"="H:\\" "Registration"="SOFTWARE\\Electronic Arts\\EA GAMES\\The Sims 2\\ergc" "CacheSize"="2940625920" "SwapSize"="0" "Language"="English US" "Locale"="en_us" "CD Drive"="H:\\" "Install Dir"="D:\\GAMEDI~1\\THESIM~1\\THESIM~1\\" "Product GUID"="{40C03514-89C3-41BA-0090-3B440256DB87}" "Region"="14883" "Folder"="C:\\Documents and Settings\\All Users\\Start Menu\\Programs\\EA GAMES\\The Sims 2\\" "Patch URL"="http://thesims2.ea.com/update/" "Suppression Exe"="" "EPsInstalled"="Sims2EP1.exe,Sims2EP2.exe,Sims2EP3.exe,Sims2SP1.exe,Sims2SP2.exe,Sims2EP4.exe,Sims2EP5.exe,Sims2SP4.exe,Sims2SP5.exe,Sims2EP6.exe,Sims2SP6.exe,,Sims2EP7.exe,Sims2SP7.exe" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2\ergc] @="YOUR GAME KEY" so you need to have these 3 sets of reg entries for each install in one .reg since you have to export them all seperately open them all up in note pad and combine them to one by copying and pasting
