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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 1st Aug 2016 at 4:41 AM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Island Paradise, Into the Future
Default Origin does not recognize expansions installed on PC
I got a new computer recently and wanted to start playing the Sims 3 on it. It's a Surface Book so it has no disk drive. I downloaded the game and its expansions digitally from origin.

Apparently, the last patch for the game made it so that you MUST be logged into Origin to play. My sister and I share the game, but we registered the expansions long ago to the account of whoever bought them as we bought all the physical disks, I just can't use them with this PC as is. I installed the some of the expansions from my account and the missing ones from hers, but because I have to be logged into my account to play, Origin won't recognize that the expansions registered to my sister are on my PC and I can't play with them. From what I've read elsewhere, uninstalling Origin won't let me play at all so I don't know what to do.

Is there any way around this? If I bought an external disk drive and installed the game from the disks, would it still give me this problem or would it recognize that I do have the expansions?
I really want to play with the full game so any help is appreciated.
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Top Secret Researcher
#2 Old 1st Aug 2016 at 5:16 AM
I don't know of a work around, but I do know a simguru said that families can share a game. I think if you contact EA customer service, they may be able to link all the expansion packs to one account. If you both want to play at the same time, one or both of you would have to log in to Origin in offline mode. You could also get an external disk drive, if you still have the disks. I hope it works out.
Lab Assistant
#3 Old 1st Aug 2016 at 7:08 AM
If this helps: my EPs come from a variety of sources as well, including digital downloads from Origin, one digital download from Amazon, and a few disks. I installed all the EPs on my new computer and they all work, even the ones Origin claims I don't have. They all show up on the actual Sims launcher. So, if you are able to hook up an external drive to your Surface Book and install your disks that way, it may work for you in case EA customer service can't help you.
Lab Assistant
#4 Old 1st Aug 2016 at 2:17 PM
This happened to me the other day, I was unable to use some of my expansion packs because they were on two different Origin accounts. I had to call and have all of them merged onto one account in order to play, even though all of the packs were installed. It was working up until I had to reinstall my windows and I had to redownload the game. Then when I'm on the phone with them, the guy on the phone was trying to tell me that I'm not supposed to use all of the expansion packs at once because it will mess up the game. But I'm pretty sure it borks your game up having different saves for different expansion packs.... so i have all of mine on anyway even though he went in and somehow manually shut a bunch of them off.

Andy: This year for Christmas, everyone's getting a handshake and an I.O.U.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 1st Aug 2016 at 6:53 PM
Quote: Originally posted by jendyose
This happened to me the other day, I was unable to use some of my expansion packs because they were on two different Origin accounts. I had to call and have all of them merged onto one account in order to play, even though all of the packs were installed. It was working up until I had to reinstall my windows and I had to redownload the game. Then when I'm on the phone with them, the guy on the phone was trying to tell me that I'm not supposed to use all of the expansion packs at once because it will mess up the game. But I'm pretty sure it borks your game up having different saves for different expansion packs.... so i have all of mine on anyway even though he went in and somehow manually shut a bunch of them off.


EA Customer Support is very good at what they do (manage accounts, solve problems with entitlement, etc.). But they have proven time and again that they know nothing about how this game works. They are just reading from a script when they spout nonsense like that.
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