newbie needs help with the sims copy cd

[glow]

I am trying to copy (US version PC) "the sims" cd but I am having troubles. Is it possible for some-one to walk me thru it. I followed the instructions posted for copy cd/fixed exe, but do not understand some of it. I copied the cd to a temp dir. using explorer. Should I have been using my adaptec copy instead? or Neroburn? The instructions say extact the patch.zip archive to tempdir., then execute patch.bat from within TempDir to patch the game. How do you do this and what does it mean exactly. What is patch.bat?