Help With Livin' Large, Livin' It Up and Sims
Introduction
LL as I'm going to refer to it in the rest of this help sheet, has been a big letdown on Maxis's side. When installed properly and working, it gives you a whole new realm of sim play, but Its the installation that can cause the problems. This help sheet will mostly be problems and answers, as there are many problems with LL's installation. The First Few Problems will be for the Original Game.
Problems And Answers
P: People have stopped coming to my house, even when I phone them.
A: First, If you have been using the move_objects on cheat, have you accidentally deleted you mailbox? If you have, your bills wont come, and because you can't pay them, the repo man comes and takes some of your Sims possessions. Also, if there is no mailbox, Sims wont come to your house. This can be fixed by downloading the mailbox from the objects page.
Another, harder to see problem is that you might have deleted the invisible pedestrian portals, which are situated anywhere were the footpath meets the edge of the map. If you put "move_objects on" cheat in (by pressing ctrl + shift + C) and click where the pedestrian portals should be, you will quickly know if you are missing any. Once again, you can download a fix for this in the objects page, so you can buy and place new ones in.
P: I lost my serial
A: Well, don't ask people for on, that's illegal and annoying. Try this step if you have previously installed it
Click Start Click Run Type in regedit Press Enter Click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
Click Software.
Click Electronic Arts.
Click Maxis.
Click ergc and write this number down.
The number will not have any dashes.
The dashes should be placed after every 6th number. xxxxxx-xxxxxx-xxxxxx-xxxx
If you lost it completely, Maxis say that you can get a number from them if you can provide the following information:
Name,
Phone number,
Address,
E-mail address,
a photo copy of the back of the CD-ROM jewel case showing that the serial number is missing,
a photocopy of the receipt from the store where your copy of The Sims/LIU was purchased,
Contact details are at the bottom of this help sheet. If you can't do this or find the number in your registry I'm afraid that I can't help.
P: Whenever I try to load the Normal Sims or perhaps LL, it crashes in the middle of the blue start-up screens or When I try to view skins, or a family.
A: Download the Sims "File Cop" from The Sims Official Website and install and run it. A blue box will come up and it will tell you if you have any bad files which could cause the Sims to crash. It will move any bad files into another folder for you. Try to run the Sims again, and it should work. Otherwise, You will have to reinstall it.
Save your User Data folders to a different location-like the Desktop. Uninstall the game. After it is uninstalled go into Windows Explorer and delete the whole directory. Then "clean" the registry- (start - run - regedit, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder and hit the little + to expand the folder, then expand Software, and right click on Maxis - Delete.) Then reinstall the game.
If that doesn't work,
Close all background programs and disable your virus checker.
Try editing the shortcut to The Sims. To create a shortcut, Right-click on the desktop, choose New, Shortcut, browse to The Sims folder. (Usually C:\program files\maxis\the Sims\sims.exe) Choose Next and finish the shortcut. Right-click on the new shortcut and choose properties. Go to Shortcut, and the Target Line should be highlighted. Add the following switches to the end of the line: -nodx6 -skip_verify -w. If you still have problems, then goto The Sims.co.uk UBB and post your problem in LL Help.
P: When I try to install LL, IT says "would you like to Uninstall LL"
A: This is usually caused by an incomplete Uninstall before, or Sims seriously messing up. The game has put pointers into the Windows registry saying LL exists, but the pointers never got removed. Try this:
1. Go to Start.
2. Run.
3. Type "regedit" (without quotes).
4. Click "Registry" on the menu bar.
5. Select "Export Registry File."
6. Drop the list at the top called "Save in:"
7. Select "Desktop."
8. Fill in the field called "File Name" "Backup."
9. Click "Save."
10. Wait a few seconds until it's finished.
11. Click the plus next to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE."
12. Click the plus next to "Software."
13. Click the plus next to "Maxis."
14. Delete the folders under Maxis called "The Sims" and "The Sims Livin' Large." If you do not see one or the other, it is okay.
15. Now click the minus next to "Maxis."
16. Click the plus next to "Microsoft."
17. Click the plus next to "Windows."
19. Click the plus next to "Current Version."
20. Click the plus next to "Uninstall."
21. Find the folder called "{2727FBEF-3155-11D4-8F73-0050DA0F6297}" and delete it. Before deleting it, look on the right pane and look for an entry called "Display Name" and to the right of that should be either "The Sims" or "The Sims Livin' Large."
22. Now try to reinstall the game.
If you made a bad mistake to your registry, you can always import the backup you made
P: I've installed LL right, But get no changes or perhaps a few
A: Download the LL Install fixer from The Sims Official Site and try it (it requires the original disk)
P: I have an older CD drive
A: Look over this:
The Acer CD 624a will only run with protected mode drivers.
The Sanyo 256-P cannot run two safedisk programs in one Windows session. Restart Windows and try the copy-protected game again.
The Sony CDU77E must be configured as master on the IDE controller.
Drives which may not work at all: ATAPI drives; LG CD-ROM 8322B; Lite-On CD-ROM's 2xx and 3xx series; Memorex 2216, 2224, CRW 2642; Mitsumi CR4804 TR; Mitsumi CD-ROM fx 800s 1B; NEC CD-ROM 280, 251; Plextor (All types); Samson SCR-3232; HP CD-Writer +8000; Yamaha 2216E, 4416SX, 4260TX, CDR400c, CRW4416S, CDR6416S-VK; WPI cdd820; WPI cdd-1620 and LGCDROM crd/8320b.
P: When LL installation gets to the end, and the simsville video starts, it crashes.
A: You should get the newest version of media player from Microsoft. If that fails:
1) Copy the entire Livin' Large CD to your hard disk.
2) In the GameData/demo folder, delete the file teaser05.avi.
3) From the hard drive copy of the Livin' Large CD, run "Setup".
P: I get a problem with The Sims icd
Your CD-ROM's cache size could be the problem. Try this:
1) Right click My Computer and select properties
2) Click on performance
3) Go to file system and click the CD-ROM tag
4) Change the slide bar to reduce your cache size (I used 470 KB) then click apply.
5) Reinstall from scratch (You might have to use install fixer and/or copy dplayerx.dll from cd to hard drive as well)
To copy dplayerx.dll,
Open My Computer, Right-click on the CD-ROM drive.
Choose Open, right-click on dplayerx.dll, choose Copy.
Go back to My Computer, C: drive, Program Files, Maxis, The Sims, the press CTRL-V to paste the file here.
P: I still can't get it to work:
Go to the Support folder in the Livin It Up CD directory. Open SKU2 and then the UK English folder. There may be help for your problem in the Help file there but if not open IP.exe to check your PC and send details to EA support. If you really are stuck, and have a lot of patience, you can write to EA or E-mail them. The phone is quicker though. Here's what they say:
Electronic Arts has a Customer Service Department dedicated to help you with any problems you may encounter with this game. Customer Service in the UK are available Monday to Thursday from 9.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. and 9.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on Friday. We also have a 24 hour automated system where you can hear recorded messages of common game related problems and how to resolve them. Hard copies of the Trouble Shooting Guides, game FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) and other useful documents are also available from this number on Faxback, these cover most common problems at present and this service is updated regularly. Alternatively fax us on 0870 241 3231 or write to us at the following address, including a daytime telephone number with full details of your machine and the problem you are experiencing. How to reach us
Electronic Arts UK Ltd, 0870 243 2435 (standard national call rate number)
Customer Services, 0870 241 3231 (standard national call rate number)
PO Box 181, CHERTSEY,
KT16 0YL
INTERNET E-MAIL: uk-support@ea.com
INTERNET: Access our Web Site at http://www.ea.com or to our technical support area http://www.ea.com/techsupp