Thanks for the help.  That's what I get for skipping clean templates this time. 

All the geeky jokes almost make it worth having a borked window.

I made a custom live.package file with new names.  It worked for the witches, but not the social townies.  Do they pull their names from somewhere else?  Are they "pre-made" or pre-named somehow?  My memory is fuzzy, but I believe I used the live.package from AL as a base.

How strange.  I understand why you're frustrated.  Of all the strange, random things for M&G to break!

The Pythagoras window is the triangular window from OFB.  I have Apartment Life, but not Mansions and Gardens.  I've confirmed that the Pythagoras window works properly without M&G.  People at N99 are reporting that with M&G, that window can no longer be placed on a diagonal wall.  Any theories what could cause this?  Would a fix be difficult? 

I wish a vacation would sneak up on me.

I'm probably going to be using Move-in-all soon.  If I do, I'll report back.

Thanks for the input.  I wasn't thinking about the additional Vista complications.

I went ahead and got the cheaper model, I'll post how well it runs the sims.

Best Buy has the M-6864FX for $799.  The M-6862 is $699.


Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5750 (2.0 GHz)
15.4" screen
4 GB Ram
Windows Vista 64 bit
ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 2600 - 512 MB dedicated ram

The more expensive one has a 7200 rpm 200 GB hard drive.  The other has a 5400 rpm 250 GB hard drive.

Any opinions?  Will I notice the faster hard drive?  I currently have an ATI Mobility 9700/128 dedicated ram, so the graphics should definitely be a step up.

I have a laptop and don't use a mouse.  To adjust the camera angle, hold down CNTL + right touchpad button, and run your finger up and down the touchpad.  Very useful. 

Yay!  It worked!  Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but this is the first chance I've had to try it.  Thanks so much for your help, I would never have thought to try that.

I wondered if anyone else ran into this.  Maybe it's a known issue, or maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Let's take the newspaper as an example.  There are 3 files for the outside pages.  lifo_256x256 - lifo_128x128 - txtr_64x64

When I include all 3, the result is blurry.  When I remove txtr_64x64 the result is not blurry.

The obvious solution is just to leave the txtr file out.  It bothers me though, I can't understand why it makes all views blurry.  Has anyone else had this happen?

Thanks for all the input.  I'm experimenting now, editing the lots.  Maybe I can make something I'll enjoy.  I'd like to use the lots, but I'm not sure how interested I am in persuing the hobby stuff.

I'm very grateful to everyone who continued working on this.  I'm excited by the results.  I've started tinkering around with this method and having a lot of fun.

I wanted to add my one tiny bit of data.  I checked Bluewater and it seems shopping districts have the INDO "Suburb," same as the Hobbies neighborhood.  That meant there wasn't much chance of making it into a shopping district.  Just to make sure I tried the experiment.  I left the INDO as "suburb" and changed the LTXT. 

When I played, the Hobbies neighborhood was still hidden.  It couldn't be accessed from the Shopping Neighborhood button.  So unless someone learns more about how the neighborhood is marked to be hidden, making it temporarily into a Downtown is the best option.

Wow, it's not just me?  Thanks for answering.

Interesting that it happened when you installed Ikea.  I recently installed a couple of stuff packs.  This problem seems to afflict all my neighborhoods, or at least most of them.

If I find the time I'll delete the extra and see what happens.  I have several test hoods, I can try it on one of them.  The only problem is I don't have much time so I can't really give it the serious testing it needs.

I just sent a sim around to the hobby lots for the first time.  I'm wondering how useful they really are.  Is this one of those things where you try them out a couple of times, then never go back? 

Has anyone run into this?  When the "walk to lot" box pops up, it lists Pleasantview, hobbies, and hobbies again.  The first one lists all the lots except the one I'm on.  The other one lists all the lots.  Is it possible I have two hobby neighborhoods?

Update - I do seem to have 2 hobby neighborhoods.  One is Suburb007 and the other is Suburb008.  This seems to be a persistant problem, it shows up in several neighborhoods.

Any ideas?  Are my neighborhoods going to explode?  I'm tempted to edit one of the hobby hoods.  Then I could have the regular EA one, and a custom one.

Very trivial, but very frustrating.  I wanted to send a neighborhood to my brother.  I created a neighborhood story to go with it.  However, since I've played the neighborhood, the story doesn't show up automatically any more.  It's still accessible, but I wanted it to just be there the first time he played.

Does anyone happen to know how to change this?  I assume there's a flag set somewhere, but don't even know where to start looking. 

In my experience you have to give them an actual relationship.  It's not enough to just set the family flag.  I suggest making her an aunt.  You will need to edit her relationships, and theirs.  Sometimes it doesn't work right if you only edit one person's relationship data.

I have done this a few times and never had trouble with it.  Once you make her an aunt you will see the family symbol in the relationship panel.

Any progress on this?  New methods?  A tutorial on how to do Pescado's method?  Anything?

jennydee - I don't know if Christianluv's rack adds to the family wardrobe.  I don't think it does, but I'm not sure.

I can answer your other question.  Sims do not have to be playable or controlled.  They don't even have to be on the lot.  The rack gives you the phone book list.  You chose a sim and it teleports the sim onto your lot if needed. 

Edited to add - Here is the hack notveryawesome mentioned. 

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=138575

I'm excited to hear that this still works.  Changing townie's clothes with a business is the most fun way, I think.  However, it is very, very slow.  If you want to change their formals, PJs, etc., use Fat D's clothing controller.  The sim still won't swish into their new outfit after they buy (they only do this for everyday).  They will be wearing it the next time they visit the lot, and you will be able to see which sims you have already sold to.

Sorry, I didn't realize this was an old problem.  I thought something really strange was happening.

I did use Clean Installer to fix my package.  I rarely share my lots, so I haven't seen these problems before.  Thanks for all the info!

Maybe I've missed something, maybe this isn't significiant.  It does make me wonder.

Since Freetime, people have had trouble packaging lots.  The package will include all sorts of unneeded recolors.

I unistalled down to OFB.  I packaged a lot that used 2 painting recolors.  I checked the packaged file, and it has 9 painting recolors.

Is it possible this isn't a Freetime problem?  Could it be caused by CEP?  That's just wild speculation on my part, but it is strange.

My salons also sell clothes.  I find that when the business hits level 7 or so, customers suddenly start browsing the chair.  Even if no one is assigned to it, they will browse.  I have seen two sims browsing the same chair, with no stylist assigned.

I may have to try out that test fix.  It would be novel to have salons that actually worked.

I recently got another Goopy, but he has another last name.  Is there any danger changing names with SimPE?  I've also got three Ivy Copurs, and it's pretty confusing.

Is it very time consuming to create a custom name file?  I'd love to have the game use my favorite names, but I'm in the middle of the FT hack update dance.

Thanks for all of this, especially the gold record.  I was very disappointed when I couldn't recolor it.