I hate when something really simple works. It's so much more satisfying to fix a big problem, that whole "sense of accomplishment" thing. Thanks Zaleth, deleting accessory.cache worked.

I have been using no-cd cracks since about... BV I think, maybe Seasons. But I'll go look in the Securom thread anyways, maybe it got on there somehow. In fact, now that I think about it Securom may be more likely, since I got the Spore Creature Creator a couple weeks ago, and it uses a disc. I will have to go check that out.

<rant>
I hate how Securom seems to be able to linger on your computer, not causing problems. Then BAM issues crop up like mad. Grr.</rant>

Okay, this started about a day ago, and I have looked through the Google results and the results here on MATY and I am still at a loss.

The issue is this: My game won't start up. I have tried from my desktop shortcut, and from inside the TSBin folder. I even tried starting it with the installer. The hourglass comes up, flips once or twice and then vanishes. When I use the Task Manager, it tells me that Sims 2 is running as a process, but under applications there is nothing.

The only thing that I can think of that I have done to change things as far as my system or game is concerned is I cleaned up my DL folder, I deleted groups.cache and I ran the SimWardrobe's Hack Conflict detector. I clean my DL folder out fairly often (from the Clean Installer, is this a no-no I didn't know about?), I have deleted groups.cache a couple times before, and I have never run the HCD before (and I didn't find any conflicts anyways). Oh, and I also ran Jfade's Wardrobe Wrangler one time, but I didn't change anything and have since deleted it from my hard-drive.

I really hope I don't have to re-install  because I find it to be a pain (who doesn't, am I right?), not to mention that since I use backed up versions and I have kind of forgotten how to do that it will be worse than usual.

Anythign else I should try before I resort to that?

 I believe they are between 3 and 4 square feet.

Alright, in step 2 the "uaservice7" doesn't do anything, which makes sense since mine is an administrator account, but the "regsvr" command doesn't do anything either, except bring up an error that says

"The module cmd  rgsvr failed to load. please make sure the binary is stored at the specified path or debug it to check for problems with the binary or dependent .DLL files. The specified module could not be found".

This doesn't seem right. What now?

Thanks. Now I move on to the next steps, correct?

So I should delete the folders under Keys and move on to the next step?

Okay, so I ran the regdelnull hkcu -s and the regdelnull hku-s and the first found the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SecuROM\ CAUTION NEVER DELETE and deleted it but the 2nd didn't find anything. It scanned, and told me the scan was complete. In my registry I still have one marked BinData and another called SecData1. Are these the keys I am supposed to delete manually?
ETA: Wait maybe this wasn't clear enough.

In My SecuROM folder there are 3 sub-folders, Keys (contains 1 subfolder, named 399fe07, which, in turn, contains  a folder called 0001 and holds the things I mentioned before called BinData and SecData 1), User Data (which appears to be empty) and a folder called WL( which has a subfolder called 0002, which contains 3 files called CK, DATA, and VER)


Crap I am so confused. Here is a screen cap of what I am talking about: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/PollyNo9/Capture.jpg?t=1192126886

Glad to hear it, I was not looking forward to trying to convince hubby that we need a new graphics card for our 5 month old PC.  Thank you again.

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice, but none of it worked. I now have a new question, and a new picture of the same problem only worse and/or way more obvious http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/PollyNo9/simspic.jpg

My new question: Is this something that will be potentially be fixed by an nvidia update? Or is my card broken for good and I should buy a new one?

Edited for: Diction

I guess I should mention that I do have Vista, and thanks to B for suggesting that fix. Unfortunately no dice.

And I'd try Madame Mim's advice, but  I am not sure about going into the NVIDIA controller, where would I find that?

Yeah, at least now I know it isn't anything *I* did, which is nice. Thank you.

Okay, and thanks.

I've got a NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE, 2.6 GHz processor, 2 GB RAM and I am not sure what else matters, so if I missed something important let me know

If anyone can help me fix whatever caused this I will be THRILLED. I have BV installed and I have played 3 times since I installed it. The first time (w/ no hacks, just objects and genetics and whatnot) no problems, long loading times, all was as expected, the 2nd time I had put ACR in my downloads folder, things were still fine. The third time I had downloaded a new hair and compressed my downloads folder.

Then this happened http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/PollyNo9/weirdness.jpg?t=1189367491

 It also happened in the neighborhood screen (the house's plumbobs were all... dim and line-y) and the water was black. But, oddly this only happens when the camera is stationary (in the neighborhood and in the houses) So I took out my compressed downloads folder and replaced it w/ my backed up one, and this is still happening.
 
I have updated my drivers and completely removed my downloads folder and done all the other stuff I can think of. As far as I'm concerned my next step is to re-install my game, but hopefully someone w/ more knowledge can give me another idea.

Edited for: A dumb mistake

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=168794

A Moroccan themed house. The base shape/layout of the house isnt all that bad, but the addons, like the outside stairs and the flooring make my eyes hurt.

Just a point of clarification here: Does houses mean all lots, or only residential lots?

Is this real or is it Murphy's Law-esque?

Any chance of an update on this?

Is there any particular reason that the APO doesn't have the option to block elders specifically? Adults will block elders as well, but I was kind of surprised that elders are grouped in w/ adults.

I think I just cried a little, when Pes asked our opinion, almost made him seem human.

I say 'splode, by the way.

I did! I knew I had seen it! And I should have seen it in one of my searches... I must've skimmed right past it, like a dummy!

I have looked around and I probably have the search terms wrong, but is there a "For Dummies" thread/tutorial on truly clean custom neighborhoods? With pictures?

Edited for clarity

Just out of curiousity (and because it almost kind of goes w/ this thread, and not meant to hijack it in any way at all) other than custom defaults how many custom skins do folks have? I think I have kind of alot, maybe 8 outside of the defualts. But I am always looking for the one perfect set of defaults so that I can get rid of my extras and just have everyone look similar w/o all the agressive custom skintones that come up over all of the other ones. Personally I prefer pinkish toned skins for my pale sims (of which there are plenty, being as I am pale myself), but olive (for a more mediterranean feel) for the mid-range tones and none of the darkest skins ever look right. My hubby teaches at an all black school and I have never seen a black skintone that looks anything like what I actually see.

But back on track, as far as the Defaults I have in my game, I do use Helaene's, hairyness and all. I like Enayla's, even though I don't have any in my game, but only for girls, cause they are way too shiny for dudes. Also most of Enayla's are a little too fantasy for me and/or have a weird undertone, although I do use alien/zombie/plantsim defaults made out of some of her skintones. Because they are supposed to look fantasy and/or have a weird undertone.

I thought I was being so smart when I had a teen sim put all the scattered career-reward-bookshelf books in her inventory, then sent her to college. Boy, was I disappointed when I took them out and they could only be used for cooking, mechanical, and cleaning. I don't know if their boost remained, because I deleted them out of anger.

Yeah, while searching through Squinge's hacks I discovered that my brain had wanted novels to count as earnings so badly that it substituted Squinge's hack for something official.