Hello,

Please, please forgive me if I am in the wrong place. I have come in here many times and get lost. I love, love, love the game. And have gone to what I think/hope are legitimate off sites for custom content. But, I always come back here for what to do, how to do it and to make the game more enjoyable.

I swear I searched and searched for the answer, and if I missed it, I'm sorry. I keep searching for ".rar files" and keep getting sent to pages telling me how to open rar archives. I know how to open those (trial and error mostly - smile). But, I am totally lost as to what to do with files that I OPEN that give me a piece of content that is written like this: mirror.rar. I have scoured this and other sites looking to find out WHERE we load THOSE since I am sure they don't go in the downloads file. I haven't seen anything in my game (and I have all of the extension packs) that even looks like these. I even looked at the Sims3 site wondering if I accidentally downloaded some of their content. Did I mess up my files or just download the wrong format/item? I am praying that this was just one of those "duh, she's so dumb and should know" questions, but hoping still that someone else might know the answer. And, again, if I AM in the wrong place, please forgive me. I seriously tried.

Thank you so much if anyone has an answer for me. Or if I'm in the wrong place, can someone please tell me. And tell me where to go to ask? I couldn't find anything whatsoever in the FAQs and I spent days looking. Like I said, I found rar archives, not any information on the files themselves that end with the .rar extention. And I even looked at the "what to do with different extensions" pages. They didn't even mention .rar files. Not that I could find.

maramouse

I'm not sure I follow, sorry. Did you download something and don't understand the format that is inside it? If that is so, you need to give a link to the download so that others can see what it is, otherwise it is hard to help

ZIP and RAR files do the same thing (compress files into a folder so they can be shared easily, and for reducing file sizes), but rar files tend to compress files to an even smaller size due to it using a different compression technique.

Both file types can be opened and managed by WinRAR, according to file.org.

.rar files and .rar archives are the same thing! So the instructions for opening .rar archives are the instructions for opening .rar files.

Compressed files (such as .zip and .rar files) are sometimes called archive files because they were originally used to keep archive copies of files that were no longer in current use.

I'm not sure I understand your question, so this reply may be a load of rubbish!

If you open a .rar archive which has a file inside it named, for example, mirror.rar, I'd say that the creator has packed a .rar file inside another .rar file. In that case you'd need to open the second .rar file (i.e. mirror.rar) and then there should be package files or a Sims2pack inside it which is the custom content you're after :-)

Welcome to MTS. For help you post to the help section found here: https://www.modthesims.info/foru...ubleay.php?f=31

When you left click on a rar file it should open to show you what is inside. To give you an example I will grab one sitting on my desk top (I find sending downloads to my desktop the easiest way to handle them)
Mel_3t2_DoubleKnitSweater,rar It looks like a small pile of books. If I left click it it shows me what is inside the file. Often it will have package files, this one though has more rar files and a couple of pictures as the creator separated the adult male from the teen male and so on as they made the sweater for various ages. If I again right click on one of those I can see what is inside the rar file. This one has a number of package files including a mesh and recolours. The way I deal with rar files is I make a new folder and right click on the rar choosing 'extract here' That way everything inside the main rar ends up in my folder not scattered across my desktop. Then I look and can delete any files I don't want. Maybe I only want some of the recolours. It's nice when they are labeled well like theses files are.

I'm not too sure if that is what you are after either. Give us a link to one of these files your having problems with and we can help you more.

Thank you to all who replied. Sorry I just saw your responses. I would love to give you guys links. Problem is, I downloaded them a long while ago and have no idea where I got them. I'm thinking that Lauratje86 had the best understanding of what I was asking. And ... wow, usually people tell me I explain TOO much. I can't remember when someone told me to be MORE detailed. But, I can't think of any other way of putting this. Inside the rar or zip files, I found files that look exactly like package files except for the extension. When I try to click on them, I don't get the feeling/impression that there is anything INSIDE of them as in an openable file within an openable file. These are actually the kind you would PUT somewhere. Just like the package files. And the only reason I asked about them is that I found a whole LOT of them when I finally went in to load them. It took me about a year to get through the stuff that I had loaded and didn't want so that I would have room to load anything new. That is why I don't know where I got them from. Mostly.

For examples ... I have one that is called Diningroom_Natalia.rar, and another one called Bedroom_Veronika.rar. They are not compressed. They are the files inside as far as I can tell. When I click on them, single or double, it asks me if I want to go online to look for an application to open it. I have rar and zip openers, so this wouldn't happen for them. When I first started getting custom content, I downloaded a bunch of stuff and just stuck them in. The game wouldn't open, so I removed everything and started from scratch as this site suggests. That was when I saw that "oops" I had added some things that didn't have .package extensions. So I loaded what I recognized, sifted through them, and now that I'm ready to start re-loading questionable things ... I wanted to know if anyone knew what to do with these.

Sorry for the confusion. I hope this helps some. I can't think of any other way to explain it. I'm wondering if they either go somewhere OTHER than the Downloads folder, or belong to another version of the game. I got them off of trusted sites ... using the Sims2 sections, so I'm just a bit confused as to how I might get something that I COULDN'T play/use. But, thanks a lot.

Hugs to all, and happy simming ... maramouse

Unless you have SimPE you won't be able to open a package file, which I think is what you're describing here. The file quite often looks 'empty'.

Hi Karen,

Well, I'm not trying to OPEN a .package file, or a .rar file. I'm trying to figure out where to PUT the .rar ones. I guess there is some confusion because some of the archive files that contain our .package files ALSO contain .rar files. And some of the archive files are CALLED rar as well as zip files. The only reason I knew that they couldn't be opened per se, was that when I couldn't figure out where to put them, my first thought was that I hadn't gone down enough layers. And that perhaps there was another file inside of them. But since nothing opened, I came to the conclusion that what I had was another form of a ".package" file. Something that I just have absolutely NO idea where to put. I guess I could just trash them since I can't use them. But I went looking for custom content that was more beautiful than the stuff we got as default and ... well, I really would like to use it if I can. If not (shrug). But it would be nice if I could.

Oh yeah, regarding SimPE and the like (grin). I DID learn my lesson back then and don't load stuff I don't know how to use any more. So, I have it, but haven't read the instructions yet (no time) so I haven't loaded it or tried to use it. So, if there is a way that it can do something with these, I have no clue. But, I'll keep them until I find out one way or another. In case some day I find out, or find a program that will make them work. I don't know about you guys, but I'm confirmed in love with Sims2. My son tried to hook me on 3 but its not happening. And now it seems they have a 4. I just want to make sure I keep a computer around forever that will continue to play it. Love to all you simmers!

maramouse

The game can't read a rar file, no matter where you put it. If the files you have end with .rar and can't be opened with WinRAR or an equivalent they are either corrupted or improperly named. If they somehow got renamed they might have been destroyed by that.

Windows sometimes doesn't display common extensions, which could lead to a file called example.txt.exe being displayed as example.txt, even though it's still an exe file. I don't know, if that could happen with package files. I don't know which OS you are using, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to check, that all extensions are displayed. If the files you have are still package files, that have just unfortunately been named something like Bedroom_Veronika.rar.package, they might still be usable.

The two examples you gave sound like they could be collection files, as neither Diningroom_Natalia.rar nor Bedroom_Veronika.rar. sound like suitable names for single objects. Collection files still need to be in the package format for the game to read them, though, as far as I know.

Hi Abel,

Yeah (sigh) that is probably what I wanted/needed to know. They probably somehow got corrupted. I originally downloaded them on a Windows7 computer and am now using a Windows8 computer. And while I'm not saying that is what caused the problem - since I probably downloaded them all about the same time, I probably did something that corrupted an large batch of my downloads. Yeah, those two are probably collection files, but when I opened my external hard drive file, those were the first two names to catch my eye. That's disappointing, since there are so many of them. But, I probably messed something up. I don't know what that might have been since I DID read the "downloading for fracking dummies" way back when (snicker). Oh well.

Thanks though to all of you. I always know that someone, somewhere on this site knows what goes! Happy simming! maramouse

Are they called rars or are they rars? It could be that the creator is sloppy and named the file that, although it seems a bit unlikely since you say there are many of them. Since you can't provide a link to the download itself, could you perhaps send us a picture of the files?

.rar files are best put in whichever directory you want to use for your custom content backups. Then, you can unzip/expand them into the Downloads directory of your Sims game, while still having a copy safe should you ever need to replace it. The .rar file itself doesn't need to be in downloads, only the .package files (and, if desired, collections files) within it.

There appears to be such a file as Diningroom_Natalia.rar, gummilutt, so I think this is about files that are in .rar format. Unfortunately I cannot find either file. maramouse, could you please tell me what site you got the files from? It may be easier for me to advise you if I can see where the original files came from.

As we said you don't put the rar files anywhere, you simply open them and place the package files you found inside of the rar file into your download folder. I gave you a description of what I do with rar files above. Once the package files are in your game you can either delete the rar file or move it to a folder outside of your game. I keep all of my rar files organized in a similar way to my Download folder as there is no telling when sims 2 cc will start to disappear. I already have rars saved from sites which are now gone.

Hi Ieta,

I do have the rar and zip container files on my external hard drive for safe keeping but there are so many of them that its not always easy to find a specific one. But, I looked through some of my files and found out where those two pieces of content came from. Vita Sims. It looks like several of the things that I had gotten from their site came through as .rar files as opposed to .package files. Since I now know where some of them came from, I am going to see if the site owners have an idea but if anyone here knows ... that would be great too. And if I find out, just because I brought it up, I'll come back and tell you guys. Thanks again ... maramouse

For those who are interested, I went to the VitaSims website just now and went through their forum. I got the impression that the files are supposed to come through as .rar files from what I am reading there. I posted the question. If you guys haven't seen their stuff before, its beautiful. That is why I wanted to use it. I tried to download another piece and it came through again as a .rar file. Not an archive container file, an extracted, unpackaged file. I'll let you guys know what they say. I tried it in two different browsers, so its not my browser, and I guess I didn't break anything after all (grin). Thanks ... maramouse

"it came through again as a .rar file. Not an archive container file, an extracted, unpackaged file."
A .rar file is an archive container file by definition. Ignore the icon, ignore what windows says the file is, just tick "File name extensions" in the View tab of your folder, and read the file extensions - a .rar file is a .rar file is a .rar file.

I just downloaded the Natalia set from Vitasims. It came as a .rar file, which WinRAR opened automatically for me. Inside they were all .package files except for the walls, which were in .Sims2Pack format and therefore had to be opened with Clean Installer to get the package files out.

Hi Charity,

Well, then I have no idea what I'm doing or what my browser connection is doing (Mozilla and Google). I go there, they have a highlighted link that says "download", I click it, it doesn't even GIVE me a rar file. Just an already unpackaged .rar. Did you use IE? I hate IE, but I might have to try that. That might be the problem. Some programs only LIKE IE (sigh). I'll go try that. Still haven't heard back from VitaSims. Thanks Charity!

Hi all,
Still have received no response from VitaSims, but they might be doing something else, so I'll wait. But, I tried to use IE to download and it was no better. I decided to try another area. One I don't care so much about ... and went to download one of their Hair files. THAT one took me to depositfiles, and downloaded properly. It gave me a rar container file, and yes everything inside of it are package files. I have no idea why the other ones won't come through correctly. At least now I know I'm not crazy or necessarily doing something wrong. It has to be something to do with the connection between them and me because for it to happen on two different computers, it isn't my computer. And for me to be able to do it correctly everywhere else, it has to be at the other end. But, thanks for all your help. I'll keep trying and wait for a response from VitaSims.

maramouse

I thought of an experiment you might try. It's kind of off the wall, but it might help. Make a folder and put all the mystery rar files into it. Now get Delphy's Dashboard. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=387006. Yes, I know it's a Sims 3 utility, but bear with me. One of the possible problems in a Sims 3 game is to accidentally put a Sims 2 package into it, so the Dashboard is designed to spot sims 2 packages and highlight them in blue. Change the scan location to your folder of mystery files, and scan it. Do they get a blue highlight?

(I suppose you could also get SimPE and see if it can open them... If you set the file associations for a package that you -know- is a package, it might even simplify things by giving the mystery files a SimPE file icon. Or it might not, considering that it has the wrong extension. But if you have to go the route of actually trying to open a file to see if it works, SimPE takes a lot longer to load than the Dashboard does.)

Hi Ghost (and all the other kind posters here)

(grin) Well, you guys are never going to believe this ... or maybe you will. I'd been whining to my son to help me figure this out and he got so sick of me traveling from site to site trying to get help that he finally came in here. I was beginning to think that Vita Sims just didn't like windows 8 because I went in and made him let me try to download one on his computer. And it worked the right way. Their site isn't corrupt. My computer isn't corrupt. I wasn't doing anything wrong ... per se. My WinRAR file was corrupt ... or something happened to it. For some reason it downloaded some things correctly and not others. So, we deleted it completely from my computer and reloaded it and they are all in their proper format now. This is why everyone (including/especially me) were confused. The files appeared on my computer as they do when we extract them, only with the .rar extension. They were supposed to be archive files, but they didn't look like it. Some did, those didn't. It never occurred to us that there was a problem with the winrar. But ... you guys were amazing. I humbly thank you for sticking by me in my hour (days) of need. I am going to take the suggestions that you guys gave me so that I can finally learn how to navigate the programs better. All these years and I am finally learning it properly. I'm going to get Delphy's Dashboard and her organizer. Have a wonderful day to all! maramouse

It's always frustrating when software lets you down. It's a pleasure to help. Have lots of fun with your newly-usable content, maramouse!

I use Firefox, but I feel you on the 'some things only like IE'. That's a pain in the ass.