Maybe not, but when I removed it, the delay went away. Got a better explanation?

I just added this elsewhere but will briefly add it here in case it's related.

I have retail AMB CD. Yesterday played several hours, no problem. Today I tried adding a few more mods, including Twallan's No CD (which others have reported works OK with AMB). The game loaded, but took much longer than normal and I did not get the EA Mod Pop up window. The game also had some pretty annoying lagging and jerkiness. When I took the No CD out, the game was back to playing like it did yesterday, complete with the EA Mod Pop up window. Maybe I'm the only one who had this problem, but I am wondering if they have made it more difficult to bypass the CD check somehow.

I have the retail CD version of TS3, WA, and now Ambitions. Prior to AMB, it took WA about 45 seconds to load and another 45 seconds to load the saved games. Since AMB I've been slowly adding back some of my mods and hacks that have been updated. I played several hours yesterday with only occasional glitches; took about a minute to load AMB and another minute - minute and a half to load the save.

I added a couple more mods today - Desecrate's gun mod, a fountain I didn't think I had, the Reflections mirror, and Twallan's No CD, since others have reported that it works. Unfortunable it didn't work for me. I experienced a lot of lagging; not to the point of being unplayable, but darn annoying. It also took about 4 minuted for the saved game to load (yes, I realize that's a LOT shorter than the good old days but I'm comparing and contrasting here); I took out all the other CC/Mods that I put in today EXCEPT the No CD package, and still had lagging. I took out No CD and the lagging stopped. I put back the other mods I added today except No CD and it was still OK. So now I'm wondering if EA has made it more difficult to bypass the CD check. Is anyone else having this trouble with the No CD package from Twallan, or whatever you're using? I just tried to ask about his file on his site but I have to wait on registration approval.

ETA: I forgot to mention that with the No CD hack in, I never received the EA mod warning screen. After I took it out, it was there.

That's what I did - I added the 'corral' bookcases to the lot.

The Regenerate books command, when I tried it in the past, would regenerate whatever books normally come in the bookshelves, but it wouldn't add any additional books. I'm not sure why EA created a bookshelf that obviously looks like it belongs in a library, but has no skill books in it.

I just experienced yet another mood buff due to the washing machine. It started shaking and hopping around a bit (like they sometimes do in RL -cracked me up) and my sim spontaneously ran to it with a 'subdue obnoxious washing machine' message (obnoxious wasn't the exact word, but something to this effect). Then she got a +40 mood buff for being victorious. LOL

This is likely to only be an issue for people who changed their DEP settings for EP01. Once you make changes to add EA executables as exceptions, each new expansion will have to be added to the list. I am still hoping, sometime this weekend, to return the settings to the default and see if I have any problems with crashing.

Did you previously mess with your Windows DEP settings? If so, you might need to add EP02 to your list of files that DEP will ignore. At first I had crashing every time I tried to enter a lot, but doing this stopped my crashing.

If you can't be bothered to answer any of the questions I previoused asked you, I don't know why you still seem to expect that someone can help you.

Did you install the config file when you installed AM? You said that you can't delete AM - how do you know that AM was not deleted?? Did you clear your caches and try running the game after you deleted the file? Because if you deleted the physical file, clearing the caches will clear out AM. If you don't know how to clear caches, search this site for info. My best advice to you at this point, considering that the data you are providing is extremely limited and mostly unhelpful, is to clear your caches and remove ALL OF YOUR CC, every last bit of it (put it on your desktop for now if you don't want to delete it) and try running the game. If it's still borked, see the thread about installing AM  and the framework file and try reinstalling the whole thing (an Ambitons compatible version, of course).

Well, that's an excellent question.

Back when everyone was having so much trouble with the game crashing, someone (I believe this originated on the EA BBS) reported that changing the setting to allow DEP for everything but the EA executables seemed to fix their crashing, so many of us followed suit and it seemed to help. But of course every time there is an expansion, the new exe file is going to have to be added to the list. If I have time I may experiment by changing the setting back to essential Windows programs and services and see what happens.

Like usual, EA overdid something that players might have actually enjoyed otherwise. They are CLUELESS.

Hopefully someone will create a mod for this. Dropping the clothes on the floor once every 3-4 days ought to do it. To make it realistic, though, it should vary dependiing on the number of sims in the household. Currently I am playing a two-sim household and they are doing laundry twice a freaking day.

FYI, I registered my game earlier and was able to download and install the free stuff from the store just fine. I also have all the new traits (can't remember where, but some people were reporting that the new traits were missing for them). I haven't checked out the reward items yet, so can't comment on those. My sliders also work fine and I'm currently testing out some other CC. No problems yet, although ironically EA did what most other world creators have done - used the most official-looking library bookshelves - which sadly have no skill books in them whatsoever. I wish I knew how to hack that and make all books available for all bookshelves, because it's ridiculous.

See, this is why people who have no clue should NOT be messing with mods. I am in no way a computer expert but next to you I look like a genius. 

First, why would you even have copies in BOTH My docs and Program files? The AwesomeMod package file, and the aweconfig file, if you use it, go in your Mods directory in either your base game or WA directories. Got that so far? It does not even go in your My Docs folder (although that may change with Ambitions, but that's another topic). Along with this Mod folder which contains your AM file and any other CC package files you have installed goes your framework file. Did you also delete the framework? If you have other custom content that you did not install with the launcher, you have to have that framework file. Deleting it could be causing your crashing.

OTOH, if you HAVE moved the Mods folder to your My docs directory, as EA says to do now, it could be some other custom content that you have installed that is causing your crashing. Or you could still have a copy of it somewhere on your PC and need to do a search and destroy mission. Also definitely do as sora says and delete your cache files in My Documente > Electronic Arts directory.

Finally, did you or did you not start the game with AM and use the features of AM in your game? Depending on which features you used, your game might be just fine even without AM, but sora actually explained it rather well - some of the features of AM will change the game to the extent that it will no longer be playable without it. I could be wrong, but I think this will mostly be affected by the Supreme Commander features, but someone will correct me shortly if I'm wrong.

The first thing I tried was to use CFF Explorer to increase the 2GB limit on the EP02 exe file, but that didn't fix the problem for me. Not until I added the EP02 file to my DEP exception list in my Windows system folder did my crashing stop. I'm using a laptop with Windows 7, an i7 processor, and have 6 GB of RAM.

What, you don't feel like Googling it?

From Microsoft: "Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a set of hardware and software technologies that perform additional checks on memory to help prevent malicious code from running on a system. In Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, DEP is enforced by hardware and by software."
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352

I have Windows 7, but it's the same idea. There are instructions for editing your files to add it on this site, I believe, and at MTS. And I think Rainbow Brite added the instructions to her space on the TSCExchange site because I saw it after Googling DEP myself.

A relatively easy fix after a frustrating 4 crashes in a row. So yeah, could be worse.

I went out and purchased the darn thing, tried to install it, got a message to patch the base game first so clicked OK on that, then installed Ambitions. Fired it up and looked around. Map view was fine and could enter buy and build, but every time I tried to select a pre-made household I got a CTD. No error messages, just BAM, looking at my desktop.

It turns out that adding the EP02 to your windows DEP list stops this from happening...just thought I'd pass that tidbit along. Worked for me, anyway.

Hmmmm. Apparently you haven't understood anything anyone has said so far, or read any of the other threads on this topic, so trying to answer you is probably fruitless. But the way I understand it, the problem is that you cannot use the "luncher" to install sims3pack content for the store because they have crapified it so it won't work unless you have PAID FOR IT and downloaded it from the EA website.

So if you want it anyway, (edited to clarify that) you can just decrapify the sims3pack files and then you can install those. Follow the directions for decrapifying store content. Here's a post from Freezerburn explaining directions here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,18310.0.html  Or you can follow Trystiane's patient directions in post #22, at least from step 4 onward, if you wish to install package files instead. I know her tute is for general CC but I believe the same principles apply to any sims3pack. If you convert to package files, then decide if you want to convert to dcb files. Your choice(s). I believe the fireplaces and corner counters were reportedly fixed in the most recent version of the decrapify tool, although as I said previously I have not personally used it and I think some people have said they still don't work for them but could be wrong about that.

ETA: Cleaned up and rearranged additional confusing language. Or just see witch's post instead!

I placed sort of a pastel colored pattern on a bed the other day and the thing glowed so brightly that I couldn't really tell what the hell it looked like. Jeesh.

Buzzler, I lol'd. Several times. Well, one was actually a snort but that's ONLY because I have a cold. 

I wouldn't feel too badly about it, really. It happened because I decided to try the Dragons Dance thingie (I adore Douglas Adams), and I probably wouldn't have noticed it but just got curious. If it had happened to others I suspect they were just so desperate to populate their 'hoods that they really didn't notice or care. Otherwise they probably use one of the other options, since those are what I also use most of the time. So thanks, baa baa and all that, for making and maintaining this mod.

Thanks for the feedback. I just found the drowning thing to be really odd, but I do have free will on the highest setting. If my stoopid sims keep irritating the crap out me I might just have to change that. And no problem Buzzler, she is just an EA generated character that I don't really care about anyway and you might say that it adds as interesting mystery to the town, haha. But I'll be sure to download your newest version of the Birth Control Mirror as I'm finding it a really useful item to have in my neighborhoods.

I have WA, HELS, all patches, and am playing the latest version of AM.

I was playing a fambly yesterday in a user created world; man at work, woman at a community pool, kid at friend's house. I switched to the kid to make sure she was getting acquainted and the camera zoomed back on my mama sim who was suddenly drowning in the pool. She was underwater with one hand raised and I was not able to click on her thumbnail to control her actions. I admit that I didn't look closely but I don't believe that any of her motives were low unless the game suddenly decided they needed to take a dive (no pun intended). This is the first time I have ever played with AM that I had something like this happen. I don't know whether it's just because I'm a control freak when it comes to the sims or if not seeing this in my game has been a fluke. Has anyone else had this kind of thing happen to a fambly they were controlling? Without wanting it to happen, I mean?

About a sim week later, a "divorced" sim appeared with two twin babbies. I took control to check their family tree and they do not show a baby daddy. I think this may have occurred because I was playing around with Buzzler's Birth Control Mirror but was just wondering if anyone has had singles have babbies (using story progression, without your input) and whether or not the papa is listed on the fambly tree when they do. I know that supposedly sims can get impregnated when they fool around via SP but I have not yet seen it in my game.

Perhaps these are the commercials of which you are thinking?: http://www.mac-history.net/mac/2008-06-15/the-spots-of-the-switching-to-mac-campaign

And then there is this one, demonstrating the difficulty of all those wires and parts: http://www.mac-history.net/imac/2008-06-15/apple-imac-g3-simplicity-shootout

Just wanted to add that when I had the basement tool crashing problem, I deleted the pool, went back into edit town to save it, then went back to the lot in buy/build mode to add my basement and re-add the pool. Since I had sims living there at the time, I moved them out temporarily while I fixed this. This method worked, and I did not have to save the lot to the library as part of the fix - as it turns out I did save it, but only after I added the basement and put the pool back in.

If you set the AM config file to allow inactive skill gains, then Supreme Commander will give inactives commands to work on skills without you manually doing it yourself.

In another custom world I was playing a few weeks ago, I only had about a half a dozen sims in it so it was a lot easier to find the problem sim. The game was freezing - running - freezing so I was able to press the pause button like you mentioned in another thread and eventually the game would unfreeze and pause, which allowed me to go to edit town to locate the problem sim. This freezing happened several times; one time it seems that a sim was stuck at a WA register even though SC was instructing the sim to skill painting. On another occasion she was just stuck in her house because she had no easel, and for whatever reason she was not going to the high school to skill painting like the sims do in the original neighborhoods. (She had a path blocked symbol above her head.)

The freezing problems I've been having lately are not off and on freezing. No amount of time will result in the game resuming, so shutting it down via task manager is the only option. But as I mentioned previously, I used the reset world command the third time I restarted, before the freezing occured, and have not had any freezing issues since. I was controlling a 3-sim house, one of whom was a toddler and another was at work, so it wasn't any of the sims under my control who had the problem. It would have taken hours to track down the problem sim when you have a full neighborhood with sims spread out all over the place.

I thought it was OK to marry foreign sims and/or produce babbies with them, as long as you take them all back with you to the home world. Maybe someone else can weigh in, but this is what I recall Pescado saying.

I also had sims disappear while trying to return home from France. AFAIK, I did not leave anything in the middle of completion and one of my sims had her laptop in her inventory. It WAS a family of 3 generations of about 12 sims as I recall, with a big-assed house and two basement levels. I suspect some borkage related to those issues instead of blaming in on particular objects, but it seems to be something that happens to others with regularity since there have been long threads posted about it on the EA BBS.

I'm playing another user created world and just experienced my game freezing 3 times after a few minutes of play, and having to end the game via task manager on Sunday (I think it was Sunday, whatever). It would consistently hang up whether or not I gave the sims commands or not. So after the third time I restarted I paused and went to edit town view, then entered "radar all" in the console, but there was just no way I was going to go around looking at every single sim in my 'hood to see if I could find who was stuck in some action that couldn't be completed. I had a whole lot of sims walking and driving here and there and everywhere. No way, way too time consuming! So I entered "reset world" in the console. It functions the same way as "reset <sim name>, meaning all it seems to do is that it magically transports everyone home. The only price I paid was that my sim would have gotten a promotion at work, but since I had to do this 30 minutes before the end of his shift, he immediately left work to go home (he was the only sim that wasn't magically transported there) and did not get promoted. He got promoted the next day though, of course. So in my experience nothing drastic happens to your game. I was able to play it without problems of any kind after doing this.