Questions

[Life Hath Immortality]

I have Sims 2 and Sims 3. I play both.
For Sims 2 I have 4 expansion packs.
For Sims 3 I have none.
So... we just got a new computer. Do I have to reinstall all of the expansions?
And willl the games still have my sims on them?  

[Celestial Fireflies]

Since it's a new computer, I don't see why you wouldn't have to reinstall all of the expansions, so yes you probably do. As for your sims, I do not believe that your games are kept on the disc; they're instead saved to a folder on your computer. I'm less sure about Sims 3, because I'm not as familiar with it, but it may be the same principle.

I'm not 100% sure about which files are kept where, but I believe that all you have to do is copy said folder from the old computer to the new computer. TS2 keeps its files in My Documents -> EA Games -> The Sims 2. You can copy the folder onto a USB drive and then copy that onto your new computer. It might be big, so if you don't have enough space on the USB drive, you can probably get away with going inside the TS2 folder and copying over several individual folders at a time.

Keep in mind that you'll only want to copy, not cut or delete, so you still have those files if anything goes wrong. You'll want to copy the folders to the exact same locations. This is best done if you have not started playing on the new computer, though you should probably at least install the game (otherwise it may overwrite your files upon install). When you copy over the folders, you should say yes to overwriting. If you started playing on the new computer, this may mean overwriting your new sims.

Well, I hope this works for you. As long as you only copy the files from the old computer, it shouldn't mess up the game you already have. I'm not a computer expert, so I can't say if it will certainly work on the new computer, but it seems like it should. If anyone has better advice or sees something wrong with this feel free to say so. Good luck! 3nodding  

[Menaceman]

Yes, everything will need installing again. How do you expect your new computer to know you own the expansions?

Any saved games you have will be left behind on the old computer as Pixel Mine said, and will need to be copied across to the new machine. You will need to copy everything from My Documents>EA Games>Sims 2 into the same location after you have installed the game and expansions on your new machine.

With the Sims 3 I'm not so certain but as far as I gather you will need to copy everything found in My Documets> Electronic Arts> Sims 3 over to your new computer. If you use custom content in Sims 3 then it may be more complicated than that.  

[Life Hath Immortality]

Thank you both.