Oh, thank you for explaining this.   If I want a completely emply Pleasantview to play, then I need to uninstall again, reinstall but before I even open the game, put the empty template files in place, then open the game?  That's how I get the towns with all the buildings intact, but no playable sims, right?

Thank you again for responding so quickly and I'm sorry I didn't make myself clear to begin with.

Edited to ask:

If I put Argon's empty Pleasantview in place (instead of the other empty template) will I still have the houses?  I only ask because when I downloaded his to try, I noticed he had a folder called Lots but there was nothing in it.  If I save the original lots folder, can I put Argon's N001 in then just replace his Lots folder with the original one or will that undo all the work you and Argon did to clean it up?

First of all, I do have my own neighborhood and when I go into SimPE, it lists the townies I have created so far (I'm not done, there are only about 15 or 16 so far), and some NPC characters such as the psychiatrist, social bunny, a stinky skunk (! - I don't have Pets) and a few others.  So I seem to have done something right so far, I could continue to just simply play my neighborhood, it's just that I wanted to be able to have to option of playing in the other neighborhoods as well.

I'm sure you are probably getting frustrated trying to help people, but I swear I read every post here and on Jordi's thread before I bothered you.  But if you don't want (or just simply cannot) help, I'll understand, afterall, you have a life beyond the sims too and it's not like it's life threatening or anything.  So, please don't help unless it doesn't put you out.  I'll just play my own blank neighborhood and keep trying to figure out what I did wrong.

But in case you or someone else does have time:

Riverblossom Hills:
  Roth - 4 members
  Wan - 2 members
  McGreggor - 1 sim
  O'Mackey - 2 members
  Greenman - 3 members
  Viego - 4 members

In sim bin:  O'Mackey - 1 sim

Pleasantview:
  Goth - 3 members
  Pleasant - 4 members
  Dreamer - 2 members
  Caliente - 2 members
  Lothario - 1 sim
  Broke - 3 members

In sim bin:  Burb - 3 members; Oldie - 2 members

Strangetown:
  Curious - 3 members
  Grunt - 4 members
  Smith - 4 members
  Beaker - 3 members
  Specter - 2 members

In sim bin:  Loner - 1 sim; Singles - 4 members

I have not gone into SimPE and checked out how many sims are listed for any neighborhood except the one blank one.  I checked it at the point in Jordi's thread where he said that there should be 0 or else you did something wrong.  There were 0 at the time I checked.  I didn't think to look at the other ones at that time.  It wasn't until I had made the 32 sims in bodyshop that Jordi suggested and then I thought I would like to put them into Pleasantview.  That's when I discovered the houses were still occupied so I have been putting them in a blank neighborhood.

Before I did this, I completely uninstalled all the games and reinstalled, then downloaded most of JM's directors' cut for Seasons.

If you need more information, let me know.  And please, don't feel pressured, as I said I can live without it and I do really appreciate the time and effort you have spent to help.

I am sure someone with a lot more knowledge will answer you, but in my game, I always attach Bluewater Village then I never end up going.  I send sim teens to various Uni's and I have my sims go downtown, but the one time I did go to Bluewater Village (thinking I would have my sim parents buy their sim kids some toys) most of the stores were empty due to the fact that I never play the families in Bluewater.  So I have never bothered to go back.  lol

Anyway, my question (not related to the above) is that I thought I was going to end up with Pleasantville, Veronaville, Strangetown and Riverblossom Hills being empty of sims but just having all the houses and buildings when I downloaded the files that were listed under the empty part.  Not the files further down that said they only had the Maxis playable families/sims, but the one above that.  I have tried three times and I do get the files and I followed step-by-step (no, I did not replace under My Documents, but C:/ProgramFiles/EAGames/etc.) and when I go into the game, I still have families in every neighborhood.  Oh, and I first tried your N001.  When I still had families, I did like Jordi suggested and changed it to N001-bak.  Still families.  Was I misinterpreting something?

I do appreciate all the hard work everyone else has done and I'm not saying anyone here has done anything wrong, but does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? 

Thank you Zazazu.  I figured that's what I was supposed to do, but wanted to ask to make sure.

Jordi (or anyone else reading this who knows  ) I want completely clean neighborhoods, but I am not sure I understand what you said in your first post.

I have Sims2, Uni, N/L, OFB and Seasons.  No Pets and no stuff packs.  Do I need to rename N001 to N001-bak and also do what you posted under the part where if you own Seasons -- the G001 things?  I mean I understand I must do what you posted under "If you have Seasons part, but should I first rename N001 to N001-bak?

I have just finished completely uninstalling and reinstalling all the games I have and I have not even gone in to play Seasons yet, so the game should not have generated anything yet.  Although I did open Seaons' version of bodyshop, just to make sure it works, then closed it up again.

I have downloaded 90% of JM's director's cut for Seasons along with a few of TwoJeff's mods.  I went and downloaded Inge's Teleporter Shrub (yea, the one that can make a sim into a townie or downtownie -- hope it still works with Seasons.) Other than that, I have absolutely no custom content in my game yet.   Oh yea, I have the SimPE for Seasons, got that yesterday I have never been very knowledgeable about SimPE but one step at a time.

Anyway, I want to thank you for this tutorial, I think it's great!  And thanks in advance for trying to help me.

Karen and Kyna, I think the baby I had was actually just a random glitch, but I have read other posts on other sites that have said the same thing you two said.  I went to Sims2.com's bbs and on it all Maxis says is that they will fix it in the patch.  Now though, many of the posters are saying that they would rather Maxis didn't fix it as crying babies that need play and socializing is so much more realistic.  I agree that it is more realistic, but personally, I would rather the babies behaved like they always did in previous games.  They are only babies for such a short time in the game and once they are toddlers, they are much more demanding.  I would rather my adult sims were able to spend those couple of days before toddlerhood doing more important things than playing and socializing with the baby.  But that's just me, I have three kids of my own and the older they got, the better I liked them.  So I'm not a baby person.

Well, I have had 5 babies born in my game so far (not all to the same household) and only the first baby cried all the time.  I would have them play, cuddle, cuddle, play, feed, cuddle,cuddle then put in crib. The first time the babies diaper needed changing, I had the adult change it then put the baby back into the crib as the baby had just been put into the crib maybe 15 sim minutes before (just long enough for the parent to walk out of the room and down the stairs which were a few steps from the door).  Before the parent could even exit the room, the baby started crying again and it showed he needed his diaper changed again.  I thought, what?  So I had the parent change the baby (on a changing table both times) and put the baby back into the crib.  Just as the parent was straightening back up and before she had even stepped away from the crib, the baby started crying again and again, it showed that the baby needed changing.

I decided to age him to a toddler using testing cheats.  He was fine from that point on.

That is the only one out of five that I have had a problem with.  And no, I didn't have any hacks in my game which could have caused it as at that time, I only had your nowhatsthis (that drives me nuts!) in my downloads folder since it was a brand new game and I wanted to play it vanilla for a while to see how things went.

I'm not sure that all the other people who have posted about crying babies had the same situation happen, but that's what happened in my game.  Could have just been one of those random glitches that everyone gets now and then and not at all what everyone else means.  Don't know.

LOL!  You're probably right, J.M. and Maxis was just trying to make them more realistic like the crying babies.

I have heard that if the bedroom is in an attic and it's summer that sims can overheat just from sleeping.  Another dumb maxis mistake.  Apparently there's a pretty big problem with attic rooms now.  Too hot in summer, too cold in winter.  If roofs aren't put on just so, then it can rain and snow inside.  They really need to fix the build problems when they have a patch.

On another note, thank you so much for making this, JM.  I literally quit playing after threats from the ss for my kids building a snowman and came here to request you make a hack to fix it.  To my delight, you already had!  I guess I can understand your site title!

Thanks for the info, J.M. and also, thanks for this hack.  I thought it was pretty stupid of Maxis to make it this way to begin with.  Who in the heck wants their sim to burn up from exercising or sitting in the hottub?!

But now that I know that freezing doesn't kill them...looking forward to that!

Okay, I know I'm going to sound dumb, but are you saying that sims can freeze and turn into statues? Or that they actually cannot?  Cause my sims' temp meters have gone very low and turned blue, but I managed to get them inside in time.  Every time I have tried to have a sim build a snowman, I have had to make them stop and come in for a while before I could send them back out to finish building it.  Should I just ignore the blue temp?  On a forum at another site, a woman claimed her sim had turned into a statue.  And supposedly, some winters are colder, some are not so drastic -- could that make a difference?

I used to have this happen occasionally...never could figure out why.  Chalked it up to meaning that the sim that wouldn't get in the car didn't want to risk woohooing!   Anyway, I also used to have a problem if the car was not just a 2-seater.  One would get in the front and the other would get in the back.  Drove me nuts so I ended up cheating sometimes with the simoleons to buy a sports car!  Will have to put this hack in and see if maybe it will fix the 2 seater versus 4 or more seater as well.  If not, well, you didn't say it would but I will let you know if that problem goes away also.

Crammyboy, since you have OFB now, could you post whether this is still needed with OFB installed and patched?  I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks in advance and your hacks are great!

Do I need this if I have installed and patched OFB?  I have S2/Uni/NL and now OFB.  I want to make sure I get all the Critical fixes, but since it says it's for NL do you know if the problem still exists even with a patched OFB?

Thanks in advance.

Oh, I hadn't noticed that, it'll be so much easier trying to find them all.  Thank you for the help, akatonbo.

Of course, good idea!  Thank you Marg.

Okay, I know this may not be the right place for this question and also that it may have been answered already, but if so, I couldn't find it.  Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions on which hacks I need (mainly to fix the screw-ups glitches still in the game even after the patches) I would appreciate any help.  It's a totally clean game -- no custom content, no hacks.  I patched each game right after I installed it as I read here somewhere not to install them all then patch just OFB as there will still be problems.

Well, thank you in advance for any/all help.

Ivy and MissDoh, thank you both!

Hi everyone!  I don't really have anything pertinent to add 'cept I spent all morning trying to find the tool that checks to see if you have any conflicting hacks and had just about decided I must've misunderstood another post and that no such tool actually exists!  Obviously one does, so could anyone tell me where I can find it?

Thanks in advance.  Have a great day!

Regina (yes, I realize I'm quite late in responding to this thread, but just discovered) I think that the 1 point food value is a mistake.  The reason I say that is because I have tried it out and my sims seem to get just as much food value from it as from the expensive stove.  I have a feeling it was supposed to say 10 but was typed in as just 1.   You could still try it and find out.  I also have Inge's hob (just the top, no oven) and it's great for a small kitchen.  If I'm going to have a large kitchen though, I don't like it as they do have a tendency to set things (like the TC) on it and that just looks weird.  So I only use it in small kitchens.

mmholt, yea, it very well could be hacks that were poorly made or conflicting with other hacks.  I have had my game messed up (crashing -- but no blue screen first) from that.  Now I am very picky about which hacks I put in and where they come from.  But we all have to learn in our own way and for someone like me (basically knows nothing about computers) we sometimes must learn the hard way.  I just thought I'd pass on what worked for me this time.  But your idea is a good one if nothing else works.

Yep, the top one listed - 1.5.  And when you read the readme file it tells you to do everything in a numerical step-by-step order, on Step No. 7 it says to run Cab Cleaner, the Cab Cleaner is part of the Driver Cleaner Professional Edition 1.5.  (I read the readme first and started looking all over for a Cab Cleaner utility, not realizing that it comes with 1.5 - so I thought I'd add this to save you the time. )

Oh, one other thing, Step No. 3 tells you to reboot in safe mode and it even says that means to hit the F8 key during bootup, but I didn't know when to hit the key and my computer didn't say it was in safe mode (like 98 always used to say safe mode) but I did everything else just like the readme and it still worked.  (Don't laugh at me people, I have already admitted I'm an idiot when it comes to computers! Lol!)

Simlover, thanks for the link.  I read the whole topic and I'll have to ask my son or hubby sometime when I get the chance.  I have a feeling my problem was just the video drivers as my computer never actually shut down, just gave be the blue screen (with a slowly turning timer)  for a few minutes before the game would show again and play normally again for a while.  Plus, both my husband and son have built several computers (my husband has been an electronic technician all his life -- even before computers, lol) and my son seems to have inherited his fathers talents and they were the ones who got together and decided to put in this video card for me.  Also, I played the first three (Sims2, Uni and Nightlife) for 6 to 9 weeks with no problems except things like flourescent pillows, weird tracers thingies, etc. but no blue screen until I installed OFB so that leads me to believe it probably is not the PSU wattage.  But, you never know for sure, it could be that either they (hubby & son) don't know about it or that they didn't think to check.

Laylei and Tgdrysix, as I posted earlier, I was having similar problems.  Anyway, after I read this topic I read another topic on this site titled, Need some advice or Help...Please.  Way down the page someone named Hegelian posted a link to a site that will completely remove your video drivers.  Apparently, especially with Nvidia drivers, they are not completely removed using Add/Remove function on your computer.  Here is the link he/she posted:

http://www.3dchipset.com/utilities/nvidia/driver_removal/index.php

Anyway, if you get the utility, make sure you read the readme file and do it just like it says.  I was able to then load a 77.77 which after a few hours of testing has worked beautifully for me.  Course, you may need a different, older or newer driver as you have different video cards than I do (I have the Nvidia GeForce 6600.)

I just thought that maybe the reason Laylei's computer refuses to accept an older version is due to the fact that there were still traces of the current version left on your computer after you just used the Add/Remove function.

I also wanted to ask anyone here who may know, how do I find out what kind of power supply unit is in my computer?  I am not very knowledgable regarding computers and if it wasn't for others on this site, I wouldn't have been able to change my video drivers.  Anyway, just in case I get the "Blue Screen of Death" or crashes again, I would like to be able to find out about the power supply unit but don't have a clue where to look.

Did you try to completely uninstall your current driver before trying to load the new drivers?  That's what they recommend, but I gotta warn you that when I uninstalled my video drivers, my screen was so messed up it took me a while to find the downloaded (but uninstalled driver that I wanted cause I couldn't see the My Documents on my desktop (I have my desktop set to look like 98).  Anyway, for anyone that might want some help there is a great site that helps with a lot of things.  Here is a link http://tg.sims2techguide.net/
Hope this helps.

I am going to have to try this myself as I just installed OFB last night and was trying to play tonight and the screen kept suddenly going blue with the timer turning for ages.  But luckily, each time the screen did go back to normal eventually.  And yea, I just upgraded to the Nvidia GEforce 6600 about a month ago when I only had the first three games hoping that it would be better for when I installed OFB.  Sucks.  Even before I installed OFB, I was getting flourescent pillows and a few other weird graphic problems.  I hope I can install one of the 77. series and it fixes it.  I'll try to report back as to what happens.

I was given the Sims 2 along with PRIMA's Official Game Guide for the Sims 2 as a present.  I haven't looked at it in a long time (since I first got the game) but that was one of the things it implied was that you should hang on to the paintings because they go up in value after the sim who painted them dies.  I get so sick of their first few paintings though that I usually sell them and don't even pay attention  to how much they sold for! LOL