Can't Open the Cheats Menu

[Dragil]

Hello there fellow friends. I recently bought The Sims 3, with it, all of the expansions possible. I got it at a good 250$ price on eBay. I installed them on my Acer laptop, it has an Intel Core i7, 1GB GPU AMD Radeon and 8GB DDR3 RAM, with it the new Windows 8.

After installing all expansions (finishing with the Into The Future), I started up the Sims. After 2h of customizing my family, I tried to go and test it out, with cheats. So I went ahead and click [CTRL + SHIFT + C]. It didn't work.

After that I wen't and look for an answer, didn't work with anything I could find: clicking both CTRL keys and the 2 SHIFT keys, with the Windows key as well, etc.

Nothing worked, everything is just fine besides the cheat bar! What can I do? Please help!

[Trip]

I edited your title to remove all-caps.

[Nutella]

Are you in story mode?  You can't open up cheat box in story mode, needs to be in free play mode.

[lisbethsorensen]

This may seem like a silly question, but are you holding down the keys in order and letting them all go at once?

[Dragil]

Are you in story mode?  You can't open up cheat box in story mode, needs to be in free play mode.

I don't know if I am in Story Mode, how can I see if I am or not? I think I'm in free play, I created my own family and everything.

[Dragil]

This may seem like a silly question, but are you holding down the keys in order and letting them all go at once?

Yes, I even tryed holding: Shift + CTRL + C

Never worked, I used all sequences, released them at the same time, etc, nothing is working :/

[KRae]

Have you moved your family to a house or empty lot? If not, try opening the cheats after that.

[Nutella]

Try choosing one of the townie household, go into the game and let them run around freely for a few mins, then try opening the cheats panel to see if it works.  If that works, then something is wrong with your family that you created, if it doesn't work, then something is wrong with your game. 

Also have you tried clearing your caches? 

[kaseofhearts]

I know you said you tried holding the Windows key, but make sure you are holding only 1 ctrl key and 1 shift key. So it would be CTRL SHIFT WINDOWS C. All activated and pressed down at once.