Yes, I built the dock. It was sooooo much fun. You guys actually got the more vanilla version so you can imagine how horribly graphics intensive the full version was. The pool was all glass and you could see through to the landscaped sea scene complete with swimming fishes and sharks. Took waaaay too long to load so I dumbed it down a lot. Thanks for the compliments. I had so much fun building it.
Sportsfan: If you have WA and AMB the file you should use is the one that is just DOWNLOAD, not the save file. I'm sure you COULD use the save file, anyway I think you could, but you definitely should be able to use the one with the big DOWNLOAD.
When you get a .rar or zip file, you need to have that file like on your desktop. You then right click on it which should bring up a menu that includes WinZip, which is the standard unzipper for Windows 7. It will unzip the file so it then becomes a normal type file instead of a compressed file. You then double click on the normal file which should install it.
BEFORE you try installing clear out all your cache files and check your save files to see if there are any with a .bad on the end. Remove the ones that are .bad and remove any that are backup. Sometimes you have things running in the background that you are unaware of that can slow things down and even cause crashes. Since it's not just your pc you'd have to check with the family before any of these are closed. It's amazing how many things get sneaked into the startup, and therefor are constantly running in the background eating up ram. Things like Windows Media Player, QuickTime, Adobe and much more will do this. None of them need to be running behind the scenes. Check your DCBackup folder as well. Everything in that folder can be removed as it is just duplicates of what you already have. (In my case it was over two thousand files!) Once everything is cleared out, check to see if the pc needs to be defragged. You should find this in the start menu for 7. It takes just a couple of minutes to diagnose and will tell you if it needs it or not. If not, great. If it needs it, start the defrag and forget about the pc for hours. Make sure you have nothing from the exchange! Those items, even something as simple as a pattern, can really mess up your game. (It's why we keep saying no 3d party cc)
Once you've gone through all those steps, restart your pc with a hard boot. I don't know why that works better than just restart but it sometimes does so I just automatically go there. Then try again. If at that point you are still having problems a complete uninstall and reinstall of all EP/SPs and base game is in order, starting with the last installed to the first and then reverse to reinstall. It does make a difference somehow, (don't ask me how I don't know), if you get them out and back in out of order. Probably has to do with the updates. I've been told you don't have to update between each reinstall but I always check to make sure each one is up to date and make sure Origin is updated as well.
After all that, if you still can't get it to install, and it does take quite a long time to load, then I have no clue how to help you. Maybe someone more pc savvy can lend a hand at that point.
I really hope this helps. Don't give up. It truly is worth the trouble.
My kid made the Adams family. We had such fun. Did you read the bio? *goes off humming*
