Hello all. I'm a sad Platnum here. Going through Sim-withdrawal.
For those who have been following (and I thank you), here's the update:
I have tried everything. Uninstalling DS and ST so that it was where it was before the shut down happened. And it still shut down when I tried to load my saved game.
Then I took off all my saved games - totally emptied the Sim's 3 folder. It loaded, but then turned off the computer when I tried to enter a new neighborhood. So after checking out as many of the forum threads as I could, all evidence lead to computer overheating. So. I put the computer back to factory restore.
And I just got the WiFi hooked up and of course the first place I had to go was here. So once I get all my updates installed (and there are hundreds), I will attempt to install my games.
Stay tuned...