Hotdate wont install

Tone3 · #1 31-08-2002, 21:26

Okay, heres the situation. I burned the sims, but i didn't name it as the original. Now for installing Hotdate it asks me for the orginal sims cd and I put it and doesn't reconize it.

I looked at gamefix and i thought it found it but it wasn't downlaod sine they need space or something can someone help me.

bOOls eYe · #2 01-09-2002, 04:37

unwrap sims.exe with Safedisc 2 Cleaner.

Tone3 · #3 02-09-2002, 15:18

By Sims.exe you mean hotdate start.exe?

bOOls eYe · #4 02-09-2002, 23:08

i thought sims.exe ... anyway, the one protected with Safedisc

RincewindTheWiz · #5 04-09-2002, 17:38

OK, here goes. I've got all expansion packs for the Sims and here's how they are installed : in sequence. So First the Sims, then I run start.exe on the Living Large cd, which WILL check for the presence of the Sims on the hard disk before it will continue. It does not check the original Sims cd, only that it has been installed. It's better to have the original executable in the Sims directory on the hard disk in case the installation program checks this too.

After Living Large has been installed, I install House Party in the same way. It too will check for a previous Sims version on the harddisk. Note that both Living Large and House Party don't need the original cd of the Sims, they just check for the presence of the program on the hard disk. I don't know if the start.exe checks if it's started from an original cd, but it's likely since all five cds have a Safedisc 1 or 2 protection.

Back to installing; we now have The Sims, Living Large and House Party(in that order) installed, next comes Hot Date. This was a bit more complicated because if you run start.exe on that cd it asks for the HOUSE PARTY cd to be inserted, presumably to copy extra data files off it which weren't installed by the original House Party start.exe.

I think there's your problem : the installation program from Hot Date (start.exe) DOES NOT ask for the original Sims cd, but for the House Party Expansion cd (label 'THE SIMS EP2'). It may also check the copy protection of this House Party cd but I do not know about that. So if you want to install Hot Date, you have to have House Party, atleast with me that was the case. After the start.exe has copied all files it needs off the House Party cd, it asks you to insert the Hot Date cd and then continues to install.

The Vacation expansion should be installed last and doesn't need other cds while installing, only Hot Date seems to need one. Other expansion packs don't have to be present for later expansion packs to work, but if they are, they have to be installed in sequence. You just have to have a no-cd for the last expansion pack (in my case : Vacation) you installed, for them all to work without the cd.

I hope this helps a bit.