Multiple users in XP In XP is it possible to set a default file location other than c:\my documents\ea games\sims 2? With the default behaviour each user on my computer has their own set of neighbourhoods and their characters. Can we set it up shared? Thanks Adrian
From what I understand, it needs to be in the My Documents folder. The only way not to have it on C: is for the *entire* My Documents folder to be moved to another drive. So, unless someone like ManagerJosh comes up with an idea, I'd say it can't be set up that way. However, you can have as many neighborhoods as you want. Unless you're concerned that one of the family members will get into your neighborhood to ruin things, then it shouldn't be a problem. And unlike a lot of games, it doesn't automatically come up in the last neighborhood played. You have to pick the neighborhood you want to play each time you start up the game.
i looked around last night at the files and how Sims handles them. I couldnt see anywhere in any of the Sims System files where it determines the save location for the game, so I must assume it handled by the .exe directly, in which case it means that there is no way other than hacking the .exe to change it. So, you get to live with different neighborhoods.. OR, you could make a separate User ID specifically for the sims that all people can use when they want to play the game. Then just log on to that ID when you feel the urge to Sim
Look into C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 and arrange files according to the structure like it normally is...
SIMs 2 for multiple users... Please could you give a little more detail? We've got SIMs2 installed and used by one user in the family, and we'd now like to have the same neighbourhoods available to everyone. I've looked at the file structure, and all the data is under the installed user's Documents and Settings [otherwise as you say above]. Should we just move the data tree to the All Users directory? Or copy it there? If we do move it, will everyone's installation default to using this data or do we need to alter any settings? Many thanks, Mark
I'm pretty sure that the stuff put into All Users is just dummy and has no effect on the game. At least, the stuff in a user's Documents folder has higher priority, and even deleting the folder from user\Documents results in a new, fresh batch created instead of moving to the "alternate" all users\Documents directory. So basically, I'm not sure it's possible without altering the path of the Documents folder for every user to point at a common directory. Then again, it's really not too much of a sacrifice: anything you put in My Documents can be put somewhere else in another personal folder.
The game is built to use the My Documents and unfortunately, if you try to move it to any other directory it won't work. It's hardwired to look there. That's why you would have to move the entire My Documents to another drive if you want to have it anywhere but C: And it reads only from the userspecific portions. Some families have just used different userspecific accounts, but I suspect that they have to use different neighborhoods. One way to get around that, if they just want to have the same one but different users is to have them copied with a different number to the neighborhood. The 3 neighborhoods with stories are N001, N002 and N003. So, if you wanted each person to have their own N001-like neighborhood, just give it a different number like instead of N001 use N004, N005 and N006. They might have to have different names as I believe it won't let you have two names the same like two "Strangetowns," but you might be able to do it by renaming them to "StrangetownJohnnies" or "StrangetownMom." I've worked a lot with the N00# part but not the renaming of the prebuilt neighborhood, so that's something you'll need to try out to see what will work.
Well, what I meant is that, if you are willing to sacrifice the privacy of the My Documents folder and instead store personal files elsewhere, you can set it so that everyone's personal My Documents folder is the same folder, essentially making it an All Users folder, but tricking TS2 thinking it's a personal folder. I myself have my Documents folder set to J:\Documents (I partition my drives a lot), not C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents. TS2 indeed reads the information out of J:\Documents rather than the old, nonexistant User\My Documents. To go about doing that, simply log into each user's account, right-click My Documents, Properties, and change the target folder location all to the same thing. Either move the files there or don't. If you don't, copy the primary EA Games folder into the new target location.
Or simply set a new windows system path as so (username)\sims2\ actually points to allusers\sims2 that way my documents doesn't have to be moved and the game would still call for (username)\sims2, hope you know what i mean just being brief. and it's safe on your os.
