I am truly an asinine airhead. I checked out gamecopyworld, found Fairlight, here is where I'm confused... do I install the game from the CD and then just need the no-CD crack to play the game? Or does the no-CD crack install the game and I never even have to put the disc in my computer at all?

Awesome, thank you very much for your help.

No to everything? As in you read the whole thing and no I should not worry about the DRM in any Sims 2 eps?

We got Spore the day it came out, before all this scandalous DRM info was about. The computer we originally installed it on was old and could barely handle the game, and has since died. We now have a shiny new computer. I don't fully understand all this DRM stuff I'm reading about, but the idea I have is that Spore installs a separate program that messes with operating systems and can only be removed by reformatting the hard drive? So I don't want to install it on my shiny new computer because I hear all these bad things. I also hear that there are "reputable" (as reputable as a pirate can be I guess) places to download the game, even patched versions, obviously without the DRM. My question is since I own a legal copy of the game, if someone could recommend a place to download a patched virus and spyware free version of the game, would it still be illegal? If it's not, other than the whole installing a program without the consumer's consent thing, how bad is the Spore DRM really? I also have read a few things about DRM issues with Sims 2 eps. I haven't installed TS2 on my new computer yet, before I do should I be worried about the DRM on any of those? Sorry I know these are probably dumb but I have tried reading up on this and I just don't get all the technical stuff.

Well I started a test neighborhood and ran it for awhile, everything seemed to be in good working order. All of my cc seems to be intact in CAS, however upon entering a house in a neighborhood I'd started before installing Pets, I have some custom counters that are now blue. Also, I redownloaded the debugger and replaced the existing copy in my downloads folder but it's not showing up in the catalog. I know at least authorized personnel only is working. Did I screw something up or is some of my cc just not going to work now or is the debugger no longer an object?

OK, thanks for the help everyone!

And do I need to worry about other cc like walls, makeup etc.? I know there's a list of NL hacks that are OK for OFB, but OFB didn't really appeal to me so I just got Pets and I'm not sure how to tell what I need to update and what I don't. I have a non-Intel Mac, if that makes a difference. I have the following hacks:
antipeeobsession
antiredundancy
clothingtool
dropoldloves
fasterbuyclothes
ffsdebugger
finalfix-nlp2 (I'm assuming I either don't need this anymore or that there is a pets version? I'm not even entirely sure what this one does to be honest, but I'm pretty sure I got it here.)
abortbedmaking
Always Flush Toilets- Wash Hands
anitbabylecture
authorized_personnel_only
Baby Wants Fix
captainhero
coffeecuphack
dailygardener
deathfix
doorbell-quieter
engagewantfix
hugginghack
ltwvariety
marriage-postmortum
marriage-traditional
NL-DormGenderController
NL-school bus-bring friend dialog
nobabyharassment
notelepathy
notownieregen
phonehack
phonehack- talkmodule
stereohack
triplets&quadsmod_v2_6
ssfriendcountfix
nl-anticrash (also assuming either I don't need this one anymore or there is a newer version?)
nobathroomdishes
nodiningwithscum
nodormieregen
nossrespawn
stuckobjectremover
wfsanity

Thanks in advance!

Alright Gwill (or anyone else who could help), I enabled debugging mode, spawned the tree, selected adult age, male gender, and tried all 4 skintones at different times, but every time I try to spawn a vampire I get an error message referring to the sim living on the lot, saying something along the lines of "Object referred to must be a person." What's that all about? I can reproduce to get the exact error # if it's needed.

Sigh. OK, thanks for the advice. I will try that and hope for a good-looking one.

I feel like the answer to this question has to be here somewhere, but I've tried searching several different ways and come up with nothing. I have clean neighborhood templates and notownie regen, and I've made what I would like to be a Grand Vampire in Bodyshop, but I don't know how to actually make him a GV. Do I have to use SimPE? I'd prefer not to but I can if I need to. Thanks in advance!

Some of the foods are now available for download at modthesims2.com, but not all of them. HTH!

Thank you Oh Awesome One, I never use them anyway, I just wanted to make sure the lack of graves wasn't going to cause issues.

I searched the forums and could not find an answer for this, I just searched for "custom downtown." I created a custom downtown, so now those downtownie teens who are related do not have the graves of their dead relatives. Is this going to cause a problem later on? Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the help everyone, I can't wait to get back home to my game to try out your suggestions!

Hi all,
Long story short, my PC is in the process of dying a horrible drawn-out death and I am inheriting my husband's Mac. Now I've searched a bit and do not like some things I've read, so I'm just hoping that maybe, just MAYBE, there's a chance something new is going on... is there anything similar to Clean Installer available for Mac? Or SimPE? Here's the thing: I was able to do this with Nightlife installed on my PC, but only have Uni on the mac so as I understand it none of my game files will be readable, not because I'm on a Mac but because on the other machine I had Nightlife. I had used the Clean Installer to go through the character files of Pleasantview in the Program Files and delete all the ugliest of townies so that new neighborhoods would not spawn them. I want to do the same thing here, but don't know of a good way to do that without Clean Installer. Help please? Anyone? TIA!

Wow thanks Marhis. Um, one teensy little question left... how do I batch-rename the files?

Wow. This... made my day to say the least. Now I see a file up above somewhere, or maybe a link, or maybe it's not even above but in the other thread in Peasantry, I can't recall... anyway, I somewhere noticed a file for townies only/playables only etc. Would the townies only file bring the gender reversed townies to all of my custom neighborhoods, or just Pleasantview? I get sick to death of the same old Pleasantview townies in every neighborhood I play, and have tried making my own or letting the game generate random ones, but this would be the best solution EVER!

Hm, it listed 13 different conflicts with different parts of the InTeenimater. I removed the whole InTeen and all flavor packs and the problem went away. Seems odd. I'll head over to InTeen support forums and let them know what's up. Thanks very much for the help!

No custom cell phone skins, yes all my hacks are up to date, and where do I find SimWardrobe's Hack Conflict Detector?

Subject says it all. I have University and Nightlife installed, just installed Nightlife yesterday and updated or deleted all of my hacks. I'm at the end of my debugging rope! I ran the game with boolprop testingcheatsenabled true hoping to trap an error message but the game just crashed again when the sim used the phone. I removed the phone hack and autoyak to no avail. I tried playing with no custom content installed and that eliminated the problem, so then I tried the method of playing with approx. 1/2 my custom content in my DLs folder, then the other half, and so on and so forth to try to catch the faulty dl, got all the way down to one DL and removed that one to no avail. I have the lot debugger but that does not seem to have any option to help me. I deleted and replaced the phone. I moved her out and into a new lot, bulldozing the old lot. I did bring her inventory of stuff from the old house but left the old phone behind, so it may be something else in her inventory but I can't imagine what in-game item other than the phone itself would cause the game to crash following phone use. Here are my hacks as they appear in Sims2Pack Clean Installer:
Fishman Weapons Systems "Authorized Personnel Only" Security System
InSIMenator (UV) v2.5 SIM Edition
Controller- Triplets & Quads Adjuster
abortbedmaking
Always Flush Toilets- Wash Hands
antibabylecture
captainhero
Death Bug Fix
doorbell-quieter
FFS Lot Debugger
engagewantfix
hugginghack
InTeenimater_B
InTeenimater_F
InTeenimater_FlavorPak_CollegeAdmissions
InTeenimater_FlavorPak_NoAgeOfConsent
InTeenimater_FlavorPak_NoCommittedRelationships
InTeenimater_FlavorPak_NoMiscarriage
InTeenimater_FlavorPak_SameSexPregnancy
ltwvariety
marriage-postmortum
marriage-traditional
NL - school bus - bring friend dialog
No Townies Regen
notelepathy
romancemod

OK I think I got them all... any ideas? I'm at a loss!

EDIT: I have downloaded and installed the Maxis NL patch.

Well I downloaded it just to see if it might work without uni, and the rtfm says it will. Yay :0) I guess it was just listed for Uni and not for original.

I feel like un retardo, but could someone help me find the no townie regen hack for TS2 Original, if it still exists?

Hm, I went to download the lot debugger and noticed it's intended for Uni. Do you think it still might fix my social worker problem or would it cause more badness since I don't have the EP?

hm, will try the lot fixer and let you know what happens. I've been thinking about Uni but still see more reasons not to buy it than to buy it, from my own game-play point of view.

Thank you a thousand times, downloading now.