Hey everyone!

Ok, so story time, bear with me! I used to play all of my Sims 2 games via laptop, but about a year ago, the hard drive stylus snapped off, so that drive was out. I pretty much shelved the Sims for about a year until I built me new PC (specs to follow). I bought all of the expansions Seasons through Apartment Life via the EA Download Manager (EADM). I lost my original University and Open for Business disks and chose to get the University Life and Best of Business packs instead of the base expansions. I also chose to use the EADM for this. During the installation process, Nightlife wouldn't finish installing (borked during the update process), so I thought that the University Life pack being a newer release was causing version errors. So, I decided to uninstall. However, when I tried to do the uninstall.exe, it told me that I could not uninstall the expansion until I had uninstalled ALL expansions (that logic breaker made my head hurt). So, I manually uninstalled.

Trouble is, there is still something floating around that I can't find that is making it think that University Life is still installed. I followed the manual uninstall instructions from the EA site, and I checked the guide posted here, nothing left in the normal channels(my docs, program files, registry ect). I also cleared the cache for the EADM and re-downloaded. This didn't help. I got Nightlife to play nice via manual install, but I still need to get University Life all sorted out before I can stack my installs properly.

Ok, so that's the first issue. Second issue is thus: I was just testing to see if my older expansions would play nice, so I tried to install Seasons via EADM (just to see if it was playing nice, I didn't intend to actually install yet), and all of my expansions, Seasons-Apartment Life are doing the same glitch: When it asks for an installation path and you click next, it just loops back to asking you for an installation path. I tried both my preferred path and the default installation path, and neither works. You just get stuck in this wonky infinite loop of installation paths. I can't even cancel out of the autorun program at that point, I have to manually close the process.

I've tried asking EA customer support (don't laugh ) and they are completely ignoring me. I just wanna play my sims! Oh, and I use Vista 64, but base game and Nightlife worked fine for me when in compatibility mode. Ok, specs:

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.090805-0102)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 4094MB RAM
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
DX Setup Parameters: Not found

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 260
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 2673 MB
Dedicated Memory: 881 MB
Shared Memory: 1791 MB
Current Mode: 1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor

If anyone needs anything more specific, please don't hesitate to ask! Thanks in advance for any help or advice you can throw my way!

Last edited by Sariaforest : 1st Nov 2009 at 05:28 PM.

You don't need to play in compatibility mode.. you just need to patch the games.

As far as the EA launcher.. I don't think there's anything we can do. Sorry that EA is ignoring you but you really need to refer to EA for support. My suggestion for the future is always buy physical discs.. too many problems with the download manager.

As far as thinking that University Life is installed.. try restarting your computer. I know it sounds simple but sometimes that's all it needs. If that still doesn't work then try using this registry editor: http://www.ccleaner.com/download Just click on the registry link with the blue blocks on the far left side and select 'fix selected issues'. When it prompts for backup, do so.. though I've been using this for years and never ran into any problems. It should clean up whatever is left in the registry that makes it think things are installed.

Thanks for the tips Callistra. Unfortunately, I've already done all of that CCleaner, Securom search, restarting, defrag, everything I know how to do. Its really a puzzle. EA won't even acknowledge that I am talking to them, which is super frustrating

Ok, so after a week and a half of no response from EA, I called in to bust some chops. Turns out, tier one doesn't have a FAQ for how to handle University Life or Best of Business yet, so they escalated me up to tier three. It was kind of funny and sad all at the same time. The tech lady, who was very nice, was getting so frustrated trying to find University Life information on their help site, and I could completely sympathize with that, but it was kind of cute to listen to. Internal information didn't turn up anything either, except to send me to tier three. Turns out, Best of Business and University Life have unique registry keys from their expansion and stuff pack counterparts. Hopefully, I'll hear back from them soon so I can get the ball rolling again.