A Quick EP Question

[Princess Harmonia]

When I first got the Sims 2 this Christmas, I was ecstatic and have been playing since. I promised myself I wouldn't get any expansion pack or anything to enhance my gaming since I was quite entertained as it is. But of course, I broke that promise and bought not 1, not 2, but 3 expansion packs last week. They arrived yesterday in the mail and I installed them all this morning but haven't gotten around to playing them.

Now, I read online, that the expansion packs have to be installed in a certain, correct order. The order of release, I think it was. The first time I installed my EPs, (Pets, Seasons, Nightlife) out of order and it didn't work out so I uninstalled went back and installed in order. It's fine now.

I hope to play later to check out the new features but the only thing that's bugging me is the fact that now I have four shortcuts on my desktop for each pack and the original sims 2. Suppose I wanted to play, would I utilize my original Sims 2 disc, as I used to, or the most recent expansion pack disc 1 in order to play with all of my new features?

I read a quick article that stated that if I were to play as I used to with the Sims 2 original disc I would ruin my game or it wouldn't read the expansion packs I installed. I don't know how valid that is but I don't want to take any risks. I want to do things right.

Any help or input is appreciated.  

[Menaceman]

Firstly I would say, make sure you patch your game first by downloading the official patches from the Sims2 website. Download each patch that relates to a pack you own. I'd run those in the same order as the EP installation.
As for the shortcuts on your desktop it is perfectly safe to delete all of the shortcuts APART FROM the Seasons shortcut as this is the one you need to run the game. You will always need to use the disc 1 from the newest expansion you have installed on your system. In your case this is the Seasons expansion.
biggrin  

[Captain Jenocidal]

He speaks the truth. 3nodding  

[Princess Harmonia]

Thank you so much for your help! I've done just as you said and its perfectly fine, the only trouble now is the fact that my game is running slower due to the new expansion packs. It's a bit ridiculous. I'm definitely thinking though, that the best way to improve the sluggishness is to upgrade my RAM, which is ridiculously low--I'm surprised it ever even ran the original game at a regular pace. Next Monday, I'm upgrading my 256MB to a 1GB. I read online that this usually improves performance quite well. I'm hoping for the best.