Reinstall Sims 3 on External Drive

[pammy37]

My 10y.o. grand-daughter has Sims 3, and Sims 4 installed on her Surface laptop. She loves both games dearly, and her Mum has bought several expansion packs for both. (has spent hundreds of dollars doing it)
However, recently she bought an expansion pack for Sims 4 and it wouldn't download..you guessed it, her 54gb hard drive was totally full.  I suggested to her that she buy a 1TB external HD (which she did) and to try and "point" the games to that drive.

She brought it all over to me to do, and after reading literally dozens of different ways to backup, uninstall and reinstall the Games, I have managed to totally stuff it up...(sigghh)....
I cant even Log in to her account because after literally sitting for 9 hours yesterday waiting for Sims 3 to "re-download_, I cant access the Game or the account because of a script error...(it doesnt work whatever I click on ..e.g. yes or no)
My thought is to literally wipe everything i have done off the laptop and the external HD and start from scratch...
what do you think, and in simple terms...how will I go about doing it...(I believe its not as simple as just doing it from the Control Panel)
Also, can it all be done without her losing what is already paid for ?? (I would feel so bad if her Mum "lost" all that money.)

I am sorry for waffling on a bit, but out of all the forums and helpsites I "visited", yours appears to be the one most sympathetic to the fact that we are not all "techy" experts...

Please help if you can, because she totally loves the Sims game/s.....I think she is suffering withdrawals at the moment because she can't play them...lol

Regards
Pam R

[MrsFlynn]

Hi Pam R,

Depending on what's on the laptop it may actually be faster to restore the Surface to factory settings (backup your files and such first) and reinstall Origin and Sims from scratch on the external drive.

If that is not an option, then go ahead and uninstall everything Sims and Origin. Run Ccleaner's registry cleaner, restart. And then reinstall Sims and Origin to the external drive.

Hope this helps,

MrsFlynn

==========
Reference Links:

Ccleaner, It's free - http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

How to use CCleaner to fix PC issues
http://help.ea.com/en/article/how-to-use-ccleaner-to-fix-pc-issues/

[pammy37]

Thanks Mrs Flynn, but attempting to do what you said is what has landed me in trouble.

Rather than trying to back everything up, I think I would rather try a totally clean install of the games from scratch.
But Although I have managed to  get the product codes of Sims3 games from the registry, and I cant seem to do that with Sims 4.
I dont mind having to sit and download whatever is necessary, but I absolutely do NOT want my daughter to lost the money she has paid, just because i cant find sims 4 product code (which i believe is necessary for a "clean" install)

I just dont know what to do.
Pam

[MrsFlynn]

Then like my second point above, uninstall Sims 3, Sims 4 and Origin, run CCleaner registry cleaner, then re-install Origin and Sims onto the external drive. You won't loose anything that was purchase through Origin. As it sounds like both Sims 3 and 4 were purchased through Origin.

Once you reinstall Origin and log in, the games should be in your library. Reinstall Sims all expansions/stuff packs through Origin and it should download and install without a problem. Just make sure you go into the Origin menu to Application Settings and change the default installation folder to the external drive.

If after Origin install you aren't able to login. You will need to contact EA's Customer Service for assistance.

For Sims 4 you shouldn't need the product during install.

[pammy37]

I will bite the bullet and do as you said,,but just one more question...
Where does "Steam" come into it, because thats what she clicks on her desktop, to access both games'
Pam

[MrsFlynn]

This is where you can install Steam from.
http://store.steampowered.com/about/

[pammy37]

Talk about "murphys law"....I tried to log into Steam website just to make sure I would have no problems getting the game back again. But even though I am using the right username and password it asked for an authentication code as well..The emailed my daughter the code, which in turn she rang and gave me, and although I am absolutely putting the right code in..it wont accept it..

And to get into their support "forum" you have o be logged in...am in a "catch 22" situation.

[MrsFlynn]

If the code is in all capital letters example XEB62, then you'll need to type them in the exact way, in all caps.

Also, you won't loose games purchased on Steam either. As Steam keeps a record of game purchased. So all that needs to be done is re download the games once you're able to log in.

Thanks for letting us help you troubleshoot.

MrsFlynn

[pammy37]

Am re-downloading Sims3 as we speak.....I discovered a way to just do one "episode" at a time..so it shouldnt take 9 hours this time...If you don/t mind, I will let you know how I go..
Sorry for being a pain in the neck....if it was all for me, i wouldnt be worrying,, but considering who I am doing it for..welll..that's a bit different...
Pam

[MrsFlynn]

Yay!! It's working. That's great to know!! Yes, please do let us know how it goes.  

MrsFlynn

[pammy37]

No luck unfortunately Mrs Flynn
I reinstalled all the "worlds" one by one...but the game still wont play because of the script error.
Something to do with launcher in the wording)
I think I am going to have to give up. (not something I usually do)
Thanks again for the help. It's pretty depressing, but there doesnt seem to be anything else to do.

Will break it to her gently...Not sure what to suggest next .
Pam R

[MrsFlynn]

You didn't give the error message that the launcher is giving? But If it's the script error we're thinking of, it shouldn't prevent the game from being played.
 
It may prevent you from logging in to the Sims3.com/Origin account from the launcher. But, if you use those accounts, you can log in from the game's main menu as well.

Something that may help is to clear out some of the launcher's cache files

missingdeps.idx
Go to: --- \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\DCCache

dcc.ent    
Go to:---\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\DCCache

*.bin    
Go to:---\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\Downloads
Go to:--- \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\SigsCache

Downloadedsims.index
Go to:--- \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\SavedSims

*.*
Go to: --- \Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\IGACache

----------
Reference Link:

Sims 3 Delete Cache Files
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Sims_3_Delete_Cache_Files

[pammy37]

Mrs Flynn, You're a legend.
I did as you suggested..there is still an error message popping up..this is as follows:

Line: 104
Char: 3
Error: Expected identifier string or number
Code: 0
URL : http://launcherapi.thesims3.com/launcher/home/html?
        launcherLocale-en_US&LauncherCountry=US&var=loggedout

This time though, when i click on "yes" to ignore, I clicked on the PLAY button, and this time it worked.
My little Grand-daughter will be over the moon...thank you so very much.

[MrsFlynn]

Yay!! I'm happy that worked!! The script error in the launcher is an on-going thing that still pops up from time to time. It's annoying, but it doesn't affect game play.

It may from time to time also give different error messages, like mine does. But there safe to ignore and play as normal.

Thank you for the update, I'm sure your grand-daughter will be tickled pink!!

MrsFlynn