Mod The Sims - Laptop is confused about Sims 3 being installed when its not

General/Other - Laptop is confused about Sims 3 being installed when its not

Replies: 13 (Who?), Viewed: 1153 times.

8th May 2012, 01:18 AM	Laptop is confused about Sims 3 being installed when its not #1
wisher95 Original Poster Test Subject Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 42	I installed the Sims 3 base game onto my Sony Vaio laptop. When I double clicked the launcher, an error warning popped up: "Windows cannot find Sims3launcher.exe. Click browse to find the file yourself." I got frustrated and uninstalled the game. I attempted to reinstall the game but the laptop gets confused and tries to uninstall the game. The game is gone from the laptop(well the EA folder is gone). Its still listed under programs and features but when I uninstall it, it wont go away. I've turned off the laptop to try to reinstall it but no luck. Thank you for any help!

8th May 2012, 01:44 AM	#2
TJman94 Lab Assistant Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 121	Have you tried re-installing the program? I'm hoping to get a career in something like this so I'd be happy to help.
TJman94 Lab Assistant Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 121	I used to be a great cook like you, but then I caught on fire and took a fire extinguisher to the butt.

8th May 2012, 02:18 AM	#3
wisher95 Original Poster Test Subject Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 42	Yes. I've tried numerous times and the setup pops up and asks me if I want to uninstall.

8th May 2012, 03:53 AM	#4
Belzader Forum Resident Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 760	The cause of your problem is that somehow the entry in the register have not been removed, The cause of that might be that you had expansion pack/s or stuff pack/s and uninstalled the base game, this will make it impossible to remove them as uninstalling the base game will delete the whole sims3 folder. If you had game installed in default location try do a system restore.

8th May 2012, 04:24 AM	#5
wisher95 Original Poster Test Subject Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 42	I was only installing basegame. I'll try a system restore in the morning.

8th May 2012, 05:34 AM	#6
Mordant17 Instructor Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 581 Thanks: 607 in 3 Posts 7 Achievements	You can uninstall the game manually: Game_Help:TS3_Uninstall

8th May 2012, 07:50 AM	#7
Belzader Forum Resident Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 760	OP already have tried to use Windows installer to remove game and nothing happened. Guide might still be useful though, i suggest reading the parts about: Cleaning up Leftover Folders & Cleaning up the Registry.

8th May 2012, 01:17 PM	#8
wisher95 Original Poster Test Subject Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 42	System restore worked wonderfully. Now to get my laptop to recognize there is a disc in my removable dvd drive. Ugh.

8th May 2012, 02:38 PM	#9
Belzader Forum Resident Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 760	Removeable dics drives can be abit of a nightmare, if computer finds it (the drive it self), you can try unistall the drivers for it and then plug it to another port, that should force the computer to reinstall the drivers. It's not recommended to change port it use without unistall the drivers, as this will install the drivers on each port used which might confuse OS.

8th May 2012, 02:44 PM	#10
whiterider Oh, My! Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 14,656 Thanks: 27849 in 58 Posts 30 Achievements View My Journal	Drivers are independent of USB ports. perhaps you're thinking of the problems that can be caused by a drive being assigned to multiple volume letters? That certainly can be problematic, though it's more to do with the order in which removable devices are plugged in, that the ports they're plugged into.
	"On the page, punctuation performs its grammatical function, but in the mind of the reader it does more than that. It tells the reader how to hum the tune." - Lynn Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves

8th May 2012, 06:31 PM	#11
wisher95 Original Poster Test Subject Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 42	So, how do you uninstall the drive? I plugged it into my desktop and it still didn't recognize there was a disc inside. I'm just going to blame it on being dropped, maybe that's what caused it to stop working.

8th May 2012, 08:32 PM	#12
Belzader Forum Resident Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 760	If you in run type diskmgmt.msc it will open Disk Manger check there if it's listed. To uninstall it Control Panel/Device Manager, it should be listed as DVD/CD-Rom drive. In neither of the above should it be listed as unknown device. Dropping in it might have cause it stop working though there isn't much in a disc drive that can break due to that but if it was in use at the time it might have broken the game disk. You can register the game key in Origin, that will give you the possibility to d/l a digital copy of game, though using that to install it will require internet verification when starting game i think.

8th May 2012, 08:46 PM	#13
wisher95 Original Poster Test Subject Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 42	Oh! Thank you so much for your help. I'll try uninstall the driver in a minute. Edit: I went into Control Panel/Disc Manager and there was no DVD/CD-ROM option on my laptop. I have a Windows Vista operating system.
	Last edited by wisher95 : 8th May 2012 at 09:08 PM.

8th May 2012, 09:44 PM	#14
Belzader Forum Resident Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 760	It might be listed under universal serial bus controllers as it's an external drive but under no circumstances should there be an exclamation mark, that points to that it's not installed correctly or that laptop can't find it, which might be due to it's broken or something have gone bad with the drivers.

8th May 2012, 09:58 PM

wisher95

This message has been deleted by wisher95. Reason: I gave up on the driver and installed a digital copy via Origin. Everthing is working great. Thank you so much for your help.

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