Sims 3 Game for PC Archives

Delete the game files (in the default location):

1. Click the Start button and select My Computer.
2. Select the Local Disk (C:) drive folder.
3. Select the Program Files folder.
   • For 64-bit, select Program Files (x86).
4. Select the Electronic Arts folder if installed from the disc.
5. Right-click on the folders of the packs you want to uninstall and select Delete. If you want to uninstall the base game, delete The Sims 3 folder, too.
   • You need to delete the packs if you want to uninstall the base game, since the packs won’t work if you remove the base game.

For the next steps, you’ll be editing your registry. Changes you make here can have serious effects on how your computer behaves. Please follow our steps exactly, or contact us if you’d like more help with them.

Backup your registry:

1. Hold down the Windows key and press R.
2. At the Run command, type in regedit and select OK.
3. Click on File and then Export...
4. Choose a location and name for the file. This will be your backup registry file.
5. Click Save.

Delete these registry keys:

1. Expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder.
2. Expand the SOFTWARE folder.
3. For 64-bit systems, expand Wow6432Node.
4. Expand the Sims folder.
5. Right-click on the folders of the packs you want to uninstall and select Delete.
   • If you want to uninstall the base game, delete The Sims 3 folder, too.
6. Collapse the Electronic Arts folder.
7. Expand the Sims folder.
8. Right-click on the folders of the packs you want to uninstall and select Delete.
   • If you want to uninstall the base game, delete The Sims 3 folder, too.
9.  Collapse the Sims folder.
10.  Expand the Microsoft folder.
11.  Expand the Windows folder.
12.  Expand the CurrentVersion folder.
13.  Expand the Uninstall folder.
14. Each  Expansion Pack for The Sims 3 has the same name. They look like this: {C05D8CDB-417D-4335-A38C-A0659EDFD6B8}_The Sims 3 [pack name will be listed here].
    
15.  Collapse the Microsoft folder.
16.  Expand the Classes folder.
17.  Delete the following folders if they appear butonly if you are uninstalling the base game:
    • .Sims3
    • .Sims3Pack
    • Sims3
    • Sims3Pack

Delete the uninstall files:

1. Click the Start button and select My Computer.
   • If you’re on a previous version of Windows, you can access My Computer by holding the Windows logo + E on your keyboard.
     
2. Select the Local Disk (C:) drive folder.
3. Select the Program Files folder.
4. Follow these instructions on how to show hidden folders for your OS version.
5. Select the InstallShield Installation Information folder.
6. Delete the following folders if they appear.
   • {C05D8CDB-417D-4335-A38C-A0659EDFD6B8} – Base game
   • {BA26FFA5-6D47-47DB-BE56-34C357B5F8CC} – The Sims 3 World adventures
   • {71828142-5A24-4BD0-97E7-976DA08CE6CF} – The Sims 3 High end loft
   • {910F4A29-1134-49E0-AD8B-56E4A3152BD1} – The Sims 3 Ambitions
   • {ED436EA80-4145-4703-AE5D-4D09DD24AF5A} – The Sims 3 Fast Lane
   • {45057FCE-5784-48BE-8176-D9D00AF56C3C} – The Sims 3 Late Night
   • {117B6BF6-82C3-420C-B284-9247C8568E53} – The Sims 3 Outdoor Living
   • {E6B88BD6-E4B2-4701-A648-B6DAC6E491CC} – The Sims 3 Generations
   • {7B11296A-F894-449C-8DF6-6AAAA7D4D118} – The Sims 3 Town Life
   • {C12631C6-804D-4B32-B0DD-8A496462F106} – The Sims 3 Pets
   • {08A25478-C5DD-4EA7-B168-3D687CA987FF} – The Sims 3 Master Suite
   • {3BBFD444-5FAB-49F6-98B1-A1954E831399} – The Sims 3 Showtime
   • {9B2506E3-9A3F-45B5-96BF-509CAD584650} – The Sims 3 Katy Perry’s Sweet Treats
   • {1C9B6173-6DC9-4EEE-9EFC-6BA115CFBE43} – The Sims 3 Diesel
   • {B37DAFA5-717D-41F8-BDFB-3A4B68C0B3A1} – The Sims 3 Supernatural
   • {3DE92282-CB49-434F-81BF-94E5B380E889} – The Sims 3 Seasons
   • {E1868CAE-E3B9-4099-8C18-AA8944D336FD} – The Sims 3 70s, 80s & 90s
   • {F26DE8EF-F2CF-40DC-8CDA-CC0D82D11B36} – The Sims 3 University Life
   • {DB21639E-FE55-432C-BCA2-0C5249E3F79E} – The Sims 3 Island Paradise
   • {D0087539-3C57-44E0-BEE7-D779D546CBE1} – The Sims 3 Movie
   • {A0BBD6C7-B546-4048-B33A-F21F5C9F5B09} – The Sims 3 Into The Future

Now, restart your PC and The Sims 3 and/or the packs you were uninstalling should now be completely removed from your system.

Custom content has always been a part of The Sims series, at least for the PC and Mac games in it. However, how to install it has varied from game to game, and has not always been obvious.

Readers who are unfamiliar with compressed archive files (zip, RAR, and 7z), should read the section on archive files.

File paths given in this guide use the Windows-standard "\" ("backslash") separator. Macs may use a "/" instead.

The SimsEdit

In The Sims, different types of custom content are placed in different folders, depending on their file type. There is no need to do anything to the content files other than place them in the correct folders. Sub-folders are not recognized, except in the folder used for objects.

It is best to set Windows so that file extensions are always shown. When installing content for The Sims, file icons and listed file types should not be considered reliable, as many of the extensions The Sims uses for custom content are also used by other programs, and those extensions may be associated with those programs.

The file paths given below assume a default PC installation to C:\Program Files .^[1] Macs may or may not have a Program Files folder. Regardless of install location, and regardless of whether the game is on a PC or Mac, the part of the file path after "The Sims" will be the same.

Objects normally have the extension .iff, but occasionally use .far . They are normally placed in:
, and may be placed in sub-folders. They may also be placed in:

• Some objects, such as default replacements, may have specific install instructions.
• Files which modify aspects of game behavior also use the .iff extension, and may have specific install instructions.

Skins, for both Sims and pets, have the extensions .skn and .cmx for meshes. The textures are BMP files, and have the extension .bmp. These files are placed in:

• Custom animations, which use the extensions .cfp and .bcx.cmf, are also placed in this folder.

Roof textures are 32x32 BMP files, and have the extension .bmp. They can be distinguished from skin textures by their small size. They are placed in:

Walls, including murals, have the extension .wll. They are placed in:

Floors have the extension .flr. They are placed in:

Lots are a special case. Their filenames take the form HouseXX.iff, where XX is their lot number. They are placed in:

The XX is a two-digit number representing the neighborhood. For example, Neighborhood 1 is , Neighborhood 2 is , etc.

The Sims 2Edit

In The Sims 2, custom content has been simplified. There is one main extension, .package, and one main folder, Downloads, whose location does not depend on the install location. The location of the "Downloads" folder is:
Windows XP:
Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac:

If Nightlife or later is installed, the Downloads folder may contain sub-folders.

As a rule, .package files will not be associated with a program unless a program designed to read them, such as SimPE, is installed.

There is no need to do anything to the package files other than place them in the Downloads folder, or a sub-folder of it. However, it is often necessary for players to manually create the Downloads folder. When doing this, there are two things to keep in mind. One is that, as far as The Sims 2 is concerned, the name of this folder is case-sensitive. The first letter must be an upper-case "D", and all other letters must be lower-case. Also, if the base game was installed by way of a compilation, the base folder name in Documents may be the name of the compilation instead of "The Sims 2". For example, in The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection, the Downloads folder is placed under:
.

Players should note that some content needs to be placed relative to the game's install folder, or relative to the folder for the latest expansion pack. For Ultimate Collection this is always
^[1][2]

Sims2pack filesEdit

Some content for The Sims 2 if delivered in files with the extension .sims2pack . A sims2pack file is a form of archive file; the format was designed to work with an installer program^[3] that is included with all versions of The Sims 2. The sims2pack format can be used for any type of content, and is the standard format for delivering lots, Sims, and custom pet breeds. This is because the installer is designed to place the lot, Sim, or breed in the proper bin.

By default, double-clicking a sims2pack file will invoke the game's installer. It will open a dialog showing the names and descriptions of all custom content files contained in the sims2pack. (A packaged lot or Sim will commonly contain custom content used by that lot or Sim.) The dialog has two buttons, "Install" and "Cancel". Clicking the Install button will install everything in the sims2pack, regardless of whether it is already present. It cannot be told to install to a sub-folder of the main Downloads folder, and may give an installed package file a "nonsense" filename that is a seemingly-random string of letters and numbers.

An alternative to the game's sims2pack installer is the Sims2pack Clean Installer from Mod The Sims. This program "associates" the sims2pack extension with itself, so it will launch whenever a sims2pack file is double-clicked. It allows players to see what content is in a sims2pack, and to select which parts to install. When installing to the Downloads folder, it allows the player to select a sub-folder. Players can choose to override the default install folder and browse for the folder they wish to extract to. Players with Ultimate Collection will need to do this if they have a version prior to 1.6.22.0.^[2]

N.B.: Despite what Clean Installer's main page says about needing to install the .NET framework, this should not be necessary with Vista and later versions of Windows.

Enabling Custom ContentEdit

In The Sims 2, it is not enough to install custom content correctly. It must be specifically enabled by way of a dialog that appears when the game loads. For players with Nightlife or later, or any stuff pack, this dialog will not appear unless it is enabled in Game Options. Also, custom buy mode and build mode objects will not appear in the catalogs unless the game option "Catalogs Display Custom Content" is set to On. Fortunately, these things only need to be done after the game is first installed, or after adding a new expansion pack or stuff pack.

In addition to enabling custom content, players who want to use recolors of Maxis buy and build objects must use the Color Enable Package.

The Sims 3Edit

Installing custom content in The Sims 3 requires some framework. It also requires following some instructions, which vary depending on the type of file being installed. Installation of custom content for The Sims 3 is covered extensively here, and in linked pages.

There are three main file types for The Sims 3 custom content; .package, .sims3pack, and .sim . The .package and .sims3pack files are equivalent to .package and .sims2pack files in The Sims 2, though they use different formats. The .sim extension is used for custom Sims.

The Sims 4Edit

In The Sims 4, there are two custom content folders: Tray for lots and Sims, and Mods for other content. Both of these folders are located in:
Windows XP:
Windows Vista, Windows 7/8, Mac:

The Mods folder may contain sub-folders. If the Mods folder does not exist, it can be created manually. The Mods folder will contain a file named resource.cfg. If it is deleted, the game should recreate it.^[4]

Most content uses the .package extension, though the format is different from that used in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. As in The Sims 2, installing package files is simply a matter of placing them in the Mods folder, or a sub-folder of it; there is no need to do anything to the files other than place them. However, the archive file should not be placed in the Tray folder.

Lots and Sims use several different types of files. Both use a type known as .trayitem . Lots also use .blueprint and .bpi files, while Sims use .hhi, .sgi and .householdbinary files. These files can be installed by extracting them from the archive file they are in, and placing them in the Tray folder; there is no need to do anything else to them.

Script mods come in two cases. One case uses the .pyo extension, and must be left inside its archive in order to function (ie. the archive itself is placed in the mods folder). The other case uses the .ts4script extension, and is installed the same way as a .package file.  Also, script mods must be specifically enabled in Game Options.

Archive filesEdit

Custom content for games in The Sims series is usually contained in what is known as an "archive" file, usually a .zip, .rar, or .7z file. In some ways, an archive is sort of like a folder; it has its own name and location, and can contain other files and folders inside of it. However, the files inside an archive are compressed, so they take up less space and take less time to download. The files inside an archive must be decompressed and copied to a location outside the archive before they can be used. This is called "extracting", even though the file is not removed from the archive. With custom content, the issue is knowing which files to extract -- and for The Sims, which folder to place them in.

The Sims, The Sims 2, and The Sims 3 do not recognize archive files and cannot read them. While it appears that The Sims 4 does recognize zip files in the Mods folder, it also appears to expect anything in them to be part of a script mod. Therefore, when downloading any Sims content other than a script mod for The Sims 4, the archive files should not be downloaded to any game folder, but can be downloaded to any non-program folder the player chooses. Also, it is not necessary to keep the archive files once the custom content files have been extracted; they can be deleted or moved to an external storage device such as a thumb drive.

Windows and OS X can extract from zip files (which Windows may call "compressed folders"), but users will need a separate program to extract from RAR or 7z files. There are many programs which can extract from archive files, and most can extract from zip, RAR, and 7z files.^[5][6] Prices and licenses vary, from commercial, to nagware, to free or open-source.

Identifying file typesEdit

When installing custom content, it is generally useful to be able to identify the types of files that are in an archive. An archive file may contain files that should not be extracted. For example, it may contain images or text files that are about the custom content, but not part of it.

Identifying a file's type is best done by looking at the file extension; the part of the file name after the final "dot". Other methods, such as looking at the file's icon, can be misleading, particularly when installing content for The Sims. By default, Windows hides file extensions that are associated with a program, even if the Details view is used. However, this can be changed:

1. Open a folder; it doesn't matter which one.
2. Enter Folder Options:

   • In Windows XP: Click on the Tools menu, then Folder Options.
   • In Windows Vista: The button at the top left (to the left of the Views button) will say either "Layout" or "Organize". Click it; then click either "Folder Options" or "Folder and Search Options", depending on which one appears.
   • In Windows 7: Click on Organize at the top left, then choose "Folder and search options".

3. In the "Folder Options" dialog window, click on the View tab. Look in the list for "Hide extensions for known file types". Make sure that the box by this option is empty, with no checkmark, then click OK.

NotesEdit

1. ↑ ^1.01.164-bit versions of Windows use "Program Files (x86)" for 32-bit programs.
2. ↑ ^2.02.1Game Help:Ultimate Collection FAQs at Mod The Sims
3. ↑This is "PackageInstaller.exe", formally the The Sims 2 Body Shop Package Installer.
4. ↑How To Install Custom Content in The Sims 4. SimsVIP.
5. ↑The zip and 7z formats are open. RAR decompression is open, though RAR compression is proprietary.
6. ↑Version 5.0 of WinRAR, released in September 2013, introduced a new version of the RAR format called RAR5. Older software will not recognize this new format, and will not be able to open RAR files that use it.

External linksEdit

From The Archives posts are posts which I’ve carried over from my old blogs and sites I wrote for that are now offline so that I can keep a record of some of my better and more important work that would otherwise be lost. They come from the entire length of my time in games writing, so you’ll probably notice a big jump in quality between the really old stuff and the more recent content.

This was a preview of the Into The Future expansion pack for The Sims 3 which I wrote for Hittin' Crits. It was published in October 2013. I haven't collated many of my old reviews and previews here because I'm still writing those and have plenty of examples to provide, but this one was hilarious so I didn't want it to disappear.

Original article:

A green lake surrounds a city of brown. Brown dirt laying across the land, brown buildings in decay, brown rags worn by children wandering around the trash-littered streets. The city's filled with an ambivalent population- they wander around, unshowered, in dirty, scrappy clothes. Trying to talk to them about cleaning up their act is a fruitless effort. Sorry guys. I broke the future.

Into The Future will be The Sims 3's swansong, the final expansion pack released before The Sims 4 launches next year, and as you can probably grasp from the title it will send your Sims into the strange new world of the future. The future is represented by the new world Oasis Valley, accessed by hopping through a time portal (a new item introduced by the expansion). On your first use of said portal you'll be greeted by a mysterious time traveller named Emmitt (not the only sci-fi movie reference I noticed!), who hands you the Time Traveller's Almanac, which doesn't give you the winners of horse races yet to happen and allow you to amass a gambling empire, however it does show what effect your actions in the present will have on the future. This cause and effect relationship isn't as in-depth as you'd dream (no sending an army of evil robots into the past to cause them to overthrow the human race in the future unfortunately), but the ways you can influence the future were a bit more substantial than I was expecting. More on that a bit later!

Upon getting the time portal up and running you'll be able to head, well, into the future. Oasis Landing is a much brighter place than most of the worlds in the game, with gleaming, metallic buildings making up most of the central plaza. There's types of lots that you'll be accustomed to by now- bars, stores, houses- but, being the future, they don't quite look or function the same. Transport is more advanced in the future as well- hover taxis can take you from A to B, with some more interesting modes of transport as well. A pod system can quickly pop you through tubes to another station, and a hovering monorail (is it a monorail if there's no rail? A negarail maybe?) is available as well. And, of course, there's jetpacks and hoverboards for a more personal form of transport too. You'll need to practice using these futuristic technologies to increase your Advanced Technology skill, or else your Sims will move slowly and occasionally crash.

Emmitt the time traveller will provide you with some tutorial quests to learn about everything the future has to offer, but you're free to do what you like. The first thing we all did was unsurprisingly to build some Plumbots. Plumbots are robotic Sims that you can program to behave how you like. Some people were building housekeeping bots to help around the house, but I'm a horrible person and decided to make a Plumbot that had human feelings, made them fall in love with my Sim, and then ripped out his Capacity to Love trait chip and replaced it with a Sinister Circuits chip. It was pretty funny because he was still in love with the Sim, but now didn't understand what love was and thus couldn't act on it in any way. Instead, his interactions were limited to evil ones because of his programming, and he would go around being mean to everyone. Plumbots made for a lot of entertaining scenarios like this. Different combinations of trait chips make for differing results, I walked up to a random Plumbot and changed his programming so that he was both sociable and afraid of humans at the same time, making him quite confused. Plumbots can be improved by training up another new skill- Bot Building. This will allow you to make them more efficient and use more trait chips, as well as allowing you to make Plumbots of your own using Nanites. I saw a Heisenberg Nanite for sale in the Plumbot Emporium, which I'm presuming makes your Plumbot a good cook.

Plumbots can be built from scratch and customised, getting their own Create-A-Bot menu, just like the Create-A-Sim. You can piece them together from different parts and colour them as well.- you can decorate them with a cat pattern if you like (we did, it was hilarious). They then function like Sims, however their needs are different, and they'll have differing interactions available depending on which trait chips they have installed. You can use Plumbots to help around the house, or go off and earn a living, making them handy to have around. You'll need a charging station to keep them recharged though, or they'll suck power from appliances you have around the house. This happened to one group present on the night- they couldn't keep up as their duo of Plumbots comically left half the house in need of repair because of their lack of a charging station.

You'll also be able to meet your Sims' descendants in the future. What kind of people they are depends on your Sims' circumstances in the present. By using cheats in the present to add money to my family's funds, the Almanac of Time showed that my descendants were now loaded. Though I didn't think to compare my descendants' house before and after the 'stimulus package', so I don't know if that was affected. The game said the size of the descendants' family and the descendants themselves could be changed by your actions in the present, but I didn't get around to testing this out. You can alter other aspects of the future as well. For example, you can bring futuristic technology back to the present and construct a legacy, being honoured with a statue in the future. One of the statues I saw was awarded by bringing a Plumbot to the present and upgrading it with sentience to be remembered as the pioneer of robotics. On a larger scaled, you can shape how the future looks, and how its citizens behave, by triggering certain events in the present. The future begins in a 'neutral' state, but you can send it on the path to being either a utopian paradise or a post-apocalyptic dystopia. As you can probably imagine, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do the latter.

When your Sim gains the Advanced Technology skill, they'll be able to use the Almanac of Time to trigger a questline that will lead to a big outcome in the future. From what I can tell these will be the same every time. For me, I had the teenager in my family cause worldwide panic and ambivalence towards the environment, which made citizens establish a doom-sayer cult. Except the meeting he tried to attend was past his curfew, so he was always brought back home in a police car and nagged by his parents- "But Mum, I'm trying to destroy the world!" After about four or five Opportunities were completed, Emmitt appeared to tell us the future had been altered, but for some reason he didn't seem too happy about it. I ventured back through the time portal and saw the dystopia described in the opening paragraph- the place was desolate and run down, with lots of brown. All the citizens now had a 'Slob' trait and didn't shower. A lot of people walked around in dirty clothes, too. Meanwhile, in the utopian future someone else had created, everything was bright and colourful, with multicoloured trees and rainbows. Everyone walked around jovially similarly to how Sims do when Woo-Hooing somewhere other than their house. But my future had children in rags, so it was much better.

In addition to the new mechanics and features, you get access to futuristic furniture and items for your houses and community lots as well. Oddly you can buy all these in the present right away, so you could have futuristic houses and hover cars before even setting foot in the future. In my quick perusal of the Into The Future Collection I found some advanced versions of current appliances, futuristic transport, and some sneaky references (a chandelier called Tears In Rain? I see what you did there!)

Into The Future releases tomorrow, the 24th of October, on PC- be sure to keep an eye out for our review once we've gotten more time with the finished expansion!