When it rains it pours -- need to reinstall everything?

[Janna]

I have had the error 12 message come up a couple, three or who knows how many times.  Stupidly, now it seems, I ignored them and played on not realizing the damage that was being done.
Now I am getting the message of corrupted files.  Have talked with Pam about this, and sadly agree that I will in all probability have to reinstall Sims.

What I am wondering is:

Do I have to reinstall the base game, allow for patches, then do the expansion packs in order, letting any patches that came after be put in before I add another expansion pack?

I don't know what is causing the corrupted files, so is there something I need to do before I re-install to protect the new games from being corrupted?

I think it might be connected to MacAfee, as this started to happen after an update, and now I am having problems with the virus protection, it keeps telling me I don't have it on and stops while doing a scan.

Do I have to remove the viurs protection before I reinstall the games back? 

Things seem to come in threes, so this downpour has 1) virus protection mess-up 2) messed up my Sims game  3).  I am down with the flu and am one unhappy camper right now. 
So, cross your fingers that nothing else goes wrong.  Only good thing is that I don't feel like playing right now (which really shows how lousy I feel!).

[Odie]

Hi Janna,

I've had the same error message a few times lately and I didn't need a reinstall.
The main questions is: does it happen all the time or now and then?
If it happens all the time, you probably need more RAM.
Error 12 means your save file is too big, or because you haven't got enough RAM, or because you simply want to much -like me, lol-
I have plenty of RAM and I need to make sure my save file doesn't get too big. This means save often and if you have saved a few times but then all of the sudden it doesn't want to save anymore (probably after playing -and saving- for hours in total) I have to stop the game completely and restart my last working save. Besides that, you should delete all save games which end with .bad and try to play and save from the last one without that error. Or maybe the one before that, just to make sure there is no error in it.

Good luck with it!