Here's what happens. I install my The Sims 2 Deluxe then my The Sims 2 University without a problem, but when I go to install either the The Best of Business Collection or The Fun with Pets Collection I get a pop-up that sayz "All the packs are already installed." I click "Okay" and close it and that's it, nothing else happens. It will not install either one of those two expansion packs no matter what I do.

I'm trying to install this on an old machine that uses Windows XP and I followed all the instructions for removing any previous Sims2 files installed, including in the registry, using a program called Revo Uninstaller. And I'm trying to install these packs all from discs. The Revo Uninstaller does a pretty good job and removed the key registry files at three locations in the registry, as mentioned on the Sims2 Wiki and official EA website about how to uninstall all the Sims 2 files. So unless there is another place in the registry (?) I don't know about, that none of those websites mentioned before, then my hard drive is completely cleaned of all Sims 2 files as far as I know.

Anyway, I've been searching, googling, trying everything and nothing that was suggested has helped so far. I only found one old thread on this website where one person posted the same problem, but he\she used system restore to solve their problem. But I can't do that for various reasons, so that won't work for me.

So is there anybody out there that actually found out what causes this problem and solved it? Is there another work-a-around or solution to this problem?



*UPDATE*

Okay, apparently there were a few more old Sims 2 registry keys in another part of the registry, which was causing the "All the packs are already installed." to show up when trying to install The Best of Business Collection and The Fun with Pets Collection expansion packs.

They were located in this part of the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\App Paths

And you'll see them in there as something like; Sims2.exe, Sims2EP1.exe, Sims2EP2, and so on. Got to delete those too or those EPs won't install and you'll get that pop-up message. And I didn't or couldn't find them own my own. I had to use another registry cleaner called TrashReg.

TrashReg


It seems to work a lot better than other free software, at finding old obsolete registry keys. Especially for the Sims 2.

Problem solved. It just goes to show, you really got to look for all of them and not just in the other registry locations the Sims2 Wiki and official EA website mentioned. Anyway, hope my idiotic mistake helps someone else who has the same problem in the future and doesn't want to roll back with System Restore.