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Inventor
Original Poster
#1 Old 26th Feb 2015 at 6:13 AM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default Someone else having Win 8 problems
Alright, I've done the download directx 9 thing, and I've uninstalled and re-installed my game using the sticky-ed thread here, and I've tried running it through Grumpy Loader, but I still can't seem to get my game to work. It still says I'm missing the DirectX 9 plugins, and Grumpy Loader keeps showing "errors in client application," and if I ignore them, it still won't open and it even closes Grumpy as well.
This is the sort of message Grumpy keeps giving me:

Also, yes, I'm sure that everything is set to "XP Service Pack 2." Oddly enough, however, the Body Shop is running absolutely fine, better than it ever has on any of my other machines, so I know that it can't be strictly the missing DirectX thing, because I've been able to run it ever since I downloaded and installed it. Just not the actual game.

Not sure if it makes a difference, but my laptop is a Lenovo G50-70. *EDIT* Also, I have the CDs, not the Digital Downloads versions, and it is the seprate games, not the Ultimate Collection.

Sorry, I know that this is a common issue, but I also know that it's an odd issue in that every computer afflicted with this OS deals with it differently, and getting various programs to work (especially games) seems to range in difficulty from "Just pop the disk in" to "Do a naked tribal dance to the dark god Haaghenflrgg at exactly 10:45 US Mountain Time on the night of the new moon after sacrificing 2.5 chickens." There's a reason everybody hates Windows 8 so much.
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Field Researcher
#2 Old 27th Feb 2015 at 9:30 AM
Message on missing Direct-X plugins sometimes depends on old settings in MyDocuments\EA Games\The Sims 2\Config\userProps.xml. It's completely safe to delete it, as the game recreate it if missing - with correct settings for your computer.
Inventor
Original Poster
#3 Old 1st Mar 2015 at 4:35 AM
Thanks, I'll try that as well.
Inventor
#4 Old 1st Mar 2015 at 4:45 AM
Do you have the Ultimate Collection in your Origin library? For some reason, the Ultimate Collection worked for me on Windows 8 where other Sims 2 versions didn't.

The Darkdusk Legacy has ended. Read the whole thing!
The Nightmagic Legacy has ended. Read the whole thing!
Last of Her Kind has ended thanks to a dead computer.
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#5 Old 1st Mar 2015 at 11:11 AM
Also - you shouldn't need to run the game itself through GrumpyLoader, just the patch exes.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Inventor
Original Poster
#6 Old 1st Mar 2015 at 9:51 PM
@Duckie--I have the physical CDs which I bought years ago, no Origin.

Nysha--Yeah, I just tried that mostly to see if it would make any differences.

Alright, so now there are some odd new developments which may need fixing.

I tried to get my game to run using this suggestion, and it half-worked. I still installed everything in the method listed here, but had them try and install in the program files instead of the (x86) program files. It worked fine until I got to H&M, and then they stopped installing correctly/fully, but I still ended up with a desktop shortcut and files in the folder anyway? They would get to 99-100% fully installed, then say that the installer had stopped working and was shutting down, and the instillation "stopped" and closed immediately, but everything else still seemed to show up like a normal installation. Once everything was "installed," I decided to try and boot up the game to see what was going on/ to try and see what error message it would give me so that I could try and figure out what went wrong where and fix it.

Except there was no error message, and the game booted up. I went to Strangetown to see what did and didn't get installed and how everything affected gameplay. It seemed a little glitchy visual-wise, as in sometimes when moving or placing things in Buy Mode the walls would turn invisible for a few seconds, or flicker, and all of the females teen and older had black faces, due to something being wrong with the eyeliner defaults (which worked fine in Body Shop), because once I gave them different custom eyeliners, it went away, and only came back if I tried to put the "Maxis" eyeliners back on. Regular gameplay seemed unaffected, except that the stuff in the later EP and SPs didn't show up, like they actually hadn't been installed, even though everything outside the game said they did. I screwed around for a bit, did a couple of make-overs ( I had put my downloads folder with defaults and some body shop items in before booting it up), then exited the game, took a second look at all the files, then tried booting the game up again, which it did, and went to Pleasentview this time. That's when the problems started.

I had accidentally left some mods in, but, as the mods were ACR and the Pescado pack, which are KNOWN to be perfectly safe (as well as essential, since the Pescado ones also include several fixes), and I had used them in literally every single game of Sims I've ever played, so I don't think that they were (neccissairly) causing the issue (as there were some lots I visited where I did not recieve a pop-up about ACR being successfully installed, but still had issues anyway). I went into a lot, and was able to do make-overs (once again with the same aforementioned visual glitches), but when left idle, the sims seemed to get "reset" almost constantly. If one was standing, then every few seconds they would be jerked around to face in a different direction still in the same spot. If you ordered them to do something, they would start to do it and then get "reset," but if you ordered them to do it a second time, the action would follow through. Example, I would order Brandi Broke to go to sleep, she would either get right to the bed and get reset (and therefore the action dropped from the queue), or get into bed and start to sleep, get reset, and then she'd be standing there in her PJs doing the frustrated "I'm Tired!" sim dance (which would go through without a hitch or re-setting, of course the annoying stuff would be fine). I would order her to get into bed a second time, and all would be fine and she'd sleep through the night.
Since it was the Broke lot, which I had heard could be a little glitchy (I usually move the Brokes out right after make-overs and build a new house for them, so I hadn't really been able to dispute possible glitchy-ness before), I chalked it up to that, and tried a few more lots with the same results. Thinking it might just be a Pleasentview thing, I tried Veronaville, and, when it also was glitchy, re-tried the Strangetown lots to the same result.

I exited the game, grabbed out the downloads folder, and tried to uninstall and reinstall the missing EP and SPs, with the same result as before (whether the installation happened in Program Files or (x86) Program Files), so then I tried to uninstall everything, but was unable to. The uninstall feature in the files absolutely did not work, or only worked half-way. I tried uninstalling from the Control Panel but that did nothing as well. Eventually I was able to uninstall by manually deleting the remaining Program files and then going into Control Panel, but now there's a new problem, where I can't get ANY EPs or SPs to install.
The base game (which on mine is the Double Deluxe CD) installs fine (I haven't tried running it just yet), but when I try to install Uni or any stuff packs, it starts to install, installs fully, then gets to the "update patches" part (my game does that automatically when installing, though I still put the patches through Grumpy, as sometimes they didn't update fully, or sometimes it did not go into the update/patches check at all), then tries to patch the game, says it can't update successfully, then proceeds to UNINSTALL ITSELF ALL BY ITSELF, with me unable to cancel the action or otherwise do ANYTHING to stop it. It's never done anything like that before. I've tried getting to the point where it says it's going to check, then tried running it through Grumpy instead of hitting okay (which is the only choice it gives you, no option to skip or cancel or try at another time), but Grumpy just says to make sure the Sims isn't already running then quits, leaving me with having to go through the install/fail/uninstall-itself game again.

So now I only have the base game/NL/Celebrations combo, cannot install any additional things, and I'm not even sure if what I have will run correctly. Why the hell does Win. 8 have to make doing ANYTHING such an INCREDIBLE PAIN IN THE ASS?!
Inventor
#7 Old 1st Mar 2015 at 11:58 PM
I had the same problem. Unfortunately, I was unable to get either of my Sims 2 discs (Uni and OFB) working, nor was I able to get my TS2 Origin downloads (Double Deluxe and remaining EPs) working. The Ultimate Collection did work, but it looks like that's not an option for you.

The only thing I can recommend is to try TS4. Both TS3 and TS4 run perfectly on Win8, but TS4 is more like TS2 than TS3 is.

The Darkdusk Legacy has ended. Read the whole thing!
The Nightmagic Legacy has ended. Read the whole thing!
Last of Her Kind has ended thanks to a dead computer.
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