Sorry for the necromancy, but this thread is a top Google result for playing the sims 2 without installing the games, if you already have the files in your harddrive, the reason I'm replying is so that people searching in Google on how to do this can benefit (Google is full of "no, it can't be done" or "impossible, just reinstall" results), which means creating a new topic wouldn't make sense.

Anyway, all you have to do is create the same registry entries of the game that the install disks would have created if you installed normally, these registry entries point to the folders where you have the files, and to other registry entries that tricks the game into thinking you've installed it.

These are 6 registry entries per expansion and have been compiled by Jeremy at MSFN (click the link and copy the parts that you need.)

What you do is finding the parts that you need to add to the registry (those that have the names of the expansions or stuff packs in them), create a .reg file with the data, run it, and change a key so the game sees it, then the game will run normally.

As an example, suppose I already have TS2 and the NightLife expansion installed, and want to "install" University. I search my 6 needed entries in the above link, copy them to Notepad, and change the relevant parts, those are: since I'm using Windows XP 64bit, I added a \Wow6432Node\ "folder" after every \SOFTWARE\ entry, then I changed the referenced paths to point to the folder where I have the files (D:\Games\Sims2U\), and added a line at the top that made it a valid registry file, it ends looking like this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{8fd3f4ba-a4a6-4380-00a6-cc6853ab2dc2}]
"DisplayIcon"="D:\\Games\\Sims2U\\Sims2EP1.ico"
"UninstallString"="D:\\Games\\Sims2U\\EAUninstall.exe"
"LogFile"="D:\\Games\\Sims2U\\filelist.txt"
"FriendlyName"="The Sims 2 University"
"DisplayName"="The Sims 2 University"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\app paths\sims2ep1.exe\]
"Game Registry"="SOFTWARE\\Wow6432Node\\EA GAMES\\The Sims 2 University"
"Restart"=dword:00000000
"Installed"=dword:00000001
@="D:\\Games\\Sims2U\\TSBin\\Sims2EP1.exe"
"Path"="D:\\Games\\Sims2U"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2 university\ergc\]
@="QL22Q9764X8JQMHX22PB"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts\EA Games\The Sims 2 university\]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\EA Games\The Sims 2 university\1.0\]
"Language"=dword:00000001
"DisplayName"="The Sims 2 University"
"LanguageName"="English US"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\EA Games\The Sims 2 university\]
"DisplayName"="The Sims 2 University"
"Installed From"="F:\\"
"Registration"="SOFTWARE\\Wow6432Node\\Electronic Arts\\EA GAMES\\The Sims 2 University\\ergc"
"CacheSize"="983398400"
"SwapSize"="0"
"Language"="English US"
"Locale"="en_us"
"CD Drive"="F:\\"
"Product GUID"="{8FD3F4BA-A4A6-4380-00A6-CC6853AB2DC2}"
"Region"="14917"
"Patch URL"="http://thesims2.ea.com/update/"
"Suppression Exe"=""

After running a .reg file with that data and adding it to the registry, the game thinks it is installed, but doesn't see it. For this, you need to edit a last registry entry that tells the game which expansions you have installed, it's in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\EA Games\The Sims 2\ (or ...\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\...) called "EPsInstalled", empty if you don't have any, and has ",Sims2EP2.exe" if you only have NightLife, there I changed it to "Sims2EP1.exe,Sims2EP2.exe", and voila! I could play the University expansion without having to install it, the process can now be repeated for all the other expansions which will be much faster than having the install disks rewrite all the files you already have.

If this doesn't work, the worst case is that you're creating the registry entries in the wrong place, and will have to install TS2 to find where the "EA GAMES" and "Electronic Arts" entries are created, and create the expansions' entries on there.

Nobody corrected me about the rabbit holes, which means the open neighborhood is just a gimmick (if I send my Sims to the discotheque, I want to see them eat and have a dance, not a "Your Sims Are Having Fun" Load bar filling, or w/e.)

So, if one gives up control and allows families to do their stuff while one isn't playing them, it all comes down to this:


How small is "small"? And what bad stuff would happen if I attempted to rotate a couple hundred families in TS3 this way? (Say, in the time other players play a week in some family, I'd just rotate 7 families and play a day in each).

Yeah, but the problem is that it's very important (to me) that all families are able to interact with all other families (like in the real world, well, at least I can interact with pretty much anyone in the world if they have Internet), which is doable in TS2, and probably doable in TS3, but it's impossible to have families of TS2 interacting with families of TS3.

Besides, if I want to insert a new family that is, say, based on the Becker TV Show's characters, where do I insert it? Suppose I insert it in both games, which one is going to provide the best experience? Whichever it is, the other one isn't needed.

I do plan to try TS3 in the far away future, to give it a chance and see if I like it (and probably to make copycat families in TS2 based on TS3 families), but based on what I've read in this thread and the Internet, the main reason to go for TS3 is the open neighborhood and traits, but TS2 has places to go more interesting than rabbit holes in TS3, which are worth the loading times, and the traits are just a couple of extra animations or underwhelming features (like evil Sims getting "take evil nap" option that looks identical to normal nap) anyway (correct me if I'm wrong.)

Do you think that in the future someone will do something so that TS3 allows players to have the same level of control on families that TS2 has? (So that, say, I can rotate all the families in the game and introduce a new family per week without the game deciding I can't haz my fascism.)

Because otherwise it seems I'll be stuck with TS2 for a long while or forever (if TS4 and others just go downhill in this regard).

(Not that it's a big issue, considering sticking with old versions of software because the new versions don't satisfy my needs is more the norm than the exception around here.)

Hmmm... *goes to check at Google Images*




I still like TS2 sims better (after applying mesh replacements, eye replacements, etc., of course.) What's up with that expression on their face? It's as if they ate spoiled food but don't want to hurt the cook's feelings so they fake a smile.

Gracias mi Presidente, what I do is shuffle-rotating all the families in the game (with a hack so that, say, people in Veronaville can interact with people in Pleasant View, or elsewhere), while I insert new families now and then, so it's evident to the fascist in me that The Sims 2 is the only option for this (I play it because it's a toy and not a game, anyway).

----
End post.

PS - That makes me happy since I already have all the ISOs ready with the exception of AL while I have nothing TS3 related, and I won't have to worry about the puddings' look.

What is the current verdict about which game is better, after TS3 has finally amassed several expansion packs?

I currently need to reinstall, and would like to know whether going for TS2 and all its expansions (never played Apartment Life) or TS3 and all its expansions, would be the best choice.

Have you tried stopping signing your posts?

What happens is that in real virtual life the sims have a neutral face, while in CAS they are smiling, if you make them look neutral in CAS, that's the effect you get in gameplay, once you set CAS to a neutral face you can see how really the lips will end looking like.

Fix'd.

Do you have an official rating? No? Well, try to make a guess of what your chess rating is and subtract 400, that'll be close to your real rating unless you're bad at guessing. Usually a rating of 1000 is enough to beat all the people in your street, and all casual players of the park, making you believe that you're really good, yet a 1200 player is going to look far superior to you, but in reality both players are really weak.


The key is the number of times, have you played 100 games? Then you might have a point. Have you played 20 games? Then those results would indicate that he's not more than 400 points stronger than you, and so if he played on official tournaments he would probably not perform as good as you expect.

At rating below 1800 tactics are almost everything, and games are decided by blunders, so that if you make them, a player that spots your blunders and punishes them is going to be successful most of the time, even if he commits the same number or more blunders but you're incapable of noticing and punishing them. The point is that that's more about practice and experience than about brilliancy.


Ok, now go at the local chess club to play [non-casual] kids at chess and note how superior they are to you, you'll enjoy it.


Chess is all about computation, the best chess programs in the world (e.g. Rybka) are just fast number crunchers that know what to compute, and are playing consistently at a level 200 rating points higher than the strongest human on his best day.

The analytic and positional aspects of the game only help to reach positions where it's easier to compute or it makes it more difficult to the opponent, or in where you reach complex positions you are familiar with. Chess is just like an incredibly more complex version of tic tac toe, in principle (a finite turn based 2 player game with open information) now tell me what else does tic tac toe need than computation.

"Strong spacial ability" helps in computation, you can't "plan" if you don't know what are going to be the opponent's moves, all you can do is guess by evaluation of best potential future moves and if you get them right (i.e. you're not missing the better move that the opponent plays) you get efficiency, that requires computation.

"Accurately gauging one's opponent" is a non-factor, on the board players have the same strenght than online players even though the latter don't get to see their opponent, would you gauge based on the fact that your online opponent is named bubsy336? And rating based strategy doesn't work, the best move on the board is the same regardless of opponent modeling, if you're willing to set up a trap in where, if the opponent doesn't fall on it you end on a worse position you're just playing poker. Sure, there are good chess players that might do this, but they're relying on luck, I've beaten "far superior" (rating based) opponents by just not falling on their traps and showing them "gauging" me isn't the way in chess.


And again, there are many counter examples to this, do your research, besides the geniuses that failed really badly at chess (after really trying) there are examples of average intelligent people that were really good at chess (presumably by natural talent, but that talent was mainly for chess.)

Of course you need a certain level of intelligence for chess (if someone doesn't understand the rules he's never going to be world champion) but I wouldn't call that "brilliancy", it's mostly about patience, determination and having fun with the game, if it bores you it doesn't matter if you beat Einstein at physics, you're probably not going to play chess enough to beat that kid on your street.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turning

That site has a couple of other interesting articles as well.

I don't get this part, in chess strength is very well defined, and kids can get more easily to a decent level than adults, so, even if you were the most brilliant of the brilliant, an averagely trained 9 6 years old  is going to beat you at your first game, and probably continuously until you get more experience.

Chess ability is not necessarily tied to brilliancy either, see Alan Turing, a genius that developed the first computer algorithm, and hypothetical computation engines (now known as Turing Machines)* and first chess playing algorithm, yet he was really awful at chess.

*Part in italic copy-pasted.

Does it eventually wear off? How much time do I have to wait?

I'd hope stretched toddlers had their own picture thread, one I'd never visit...

It was a big lie as well! You never got to actually see the Sims in a classroom at all, it should have been called "Outside the University" or something.


While I agree it needs to be abstracted (because it's pointless to simulate things that the player mostly doesn't care about at a given moment) it should (and could) be abstracted precisely, the sims are just a bunch of values floating around that the game changes, so it should be easy to change them to reflect the same values that you would see if you were playing the family without interacting, without any computer exploding.

But that would lead to the same values for all households (the sims peed themselves and died), so it needs to have good AI first for a real open neighborhood and story progression to ever be "true."

Then the whole open neighborhood concept is a big cakelie.

The mausoleum perhaps?

I agree with Alwayswatching, specially since Anime girls are generally cute, beautiful and full of DO WANT, while this one will cause me nightmares.

Progression OFF doesn't work regardless of creation status, you may need Awesomeware.

What about losing your family because the game decided to delete it? I hope you're taking measures against that.

It works if you read it backwards, i.e. "With this shirt you can ruin any game no matter how beautiful it is, these pictures prove it, you guys can download and play around with this ugly guy made by an ugly guy. Deal with it. I know I'm new."

Is there a list online with the names of the uncredited artists?

Try watching grass grow, if you zoom in the grass the game does go a bit faster.

Why? Did they make a good job this time? The spanish TS2 was terrible (e.g. they would put "write in dairy" as "escribir en el periodico" that means "write in newspaper" instead of "escribir en el diario"  .)