Hi everyone,

After carefully following and installing empty templates into my game in an effort to get rid of all Maxis characters I am still getting folders full of Maxis characters after starting a new hood. I have successfully installed empty templates in my game many times in the past - before taking a long break from The Sims 2 so I am experienced at this and I believe I have done this correctly.

I have Windows 10 installed, and the necessary Pescado hacks.

I wonder if this insight by Pideli has any merit? Is this causing my issue?

This quote from Pideli is the second-last comment on feedback for Jawusa's "Clean And Empty Stealth Hood Templates" : Page 5 of Jawusa's feedback comments



Here is the information about VirtualStore he is referencing in his post:

Have you tried deleting the folder in Virtual store? It's perfectly safe. All that is, is a copy of what is in your EA games folder that is now accessible to your user account.

By "the necessary Pescado mods", do you mean notownieregen?

And the others too I think Nysha. OP does seem to be aware of what they all are (in her other thread). Did you try it Airelda?

Hi guys, thanks for your help. Seems like I had an unusual problem even though I am surely not the first person to try this with Windows 10!

Turns out the Virtualstore was indeed creating copies of my game folders and preventing the empty templates installed in the main game to take effect. To test this theory, I tried deleting the EA Games folder I found in Virtualstore, then run the game. Instantly, a new EA Games folder would appear in Virtualstore.

You can find the Virtualstore folder here if you need to check if you have this problem too:

C:\Users\*your user name*\AppData\Local\Virtualstore

Please note that the Virtualstore folder is hidden by default and may need to be made visible by going to the View menu of the folder and checking the box marked "Hidden items"

If you look in this folder and find Windows has added a Program Files\EA Games folder there, you may have the same problem installing custom clean or empty templates that I did.

When I saw I had this problem, I realised I had to stop the game from creating these extra game files. The reason for them generating is to do with the fact that The Sims 2 is a much older game than the current Windows platforms and from Windows 7 onward, older programs of all types may find Virtualstore activating automatically. It's some kind of security system on the newer Windows platforms.

I found an excellent tutorial here which teaches you to fix the problem (written for another game but works perfect for The Sims):
How to Fix UAC and Virtualstore Problems

The best method to use is Method 3 in this tutorial as it means you will not have to lower your UAC security level to fix the problem permanently.

Mods, I feel this might be important information to add to our knowledge database about installing custom neighbourhood templates. Is it possible for this to be pinned somewhere or added somewhere for future users?

Sounds like another very annoying 'security system' from Microsoft. I had a look on my Win10 comp and can't see anything in the Virtual Store folder, apart from something to do with Paint Shop Pro. I wonder why? However it might be worth adding this information to the wiki for TS2.

Oh wait, it seems to be to do with security permissions - looking at that site you linked to. I'm glad you worked it out.

I think a copy of the fix should be pinned here and not just the link in case somethin happens to that other site.

I'm glad you found the solution and got it fixed. :D

The virtual store is only utlised when you install the game to a UAC location, such as the Program Files or Program Files[x86] folders.




Sorry for the long post, but many of the problems I see people writing about with their sims games seem to be caused by ignorance about how UAC works. Just changing the install location would solve most of those.

*showing my ignorance here :D* .. What UAC?

EDIT: *now showin my blondness* ..Umm.. nvm .. I opened your spoiler ... lol ..

Very interesting, thank you for the information! @maxon I agree, this should be added to the Wiki, who does that?

I think I might have a try at doing that - I wanted that badge anyway

That explanation is good SimSample (if a bit long!) - explains why I don't or didn't have the problem as the game is installed on my E drive.

Double-posted because I wanted to set this out separately. This is my first version of a summary of what could go in the wiki:

Changes in game files (not My Documents), such as installing empty templates, not taking effect
Description
Installing the game on newer Windows platforms (7, 8, 10) can cause an issue to do with Windows use of virtualisation security features and Virtual Store (see the wiki article here for further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control). An example might be installing empty templates to create neighbourhoods without any sims in them only to find when neighbourhoods are created in game that they are full of the regular Pleasantview townies and NPCs and so on. This can be caused by the way Window’s Virtual Store creates copies of game files for regular use in running the game in order to protect the installation files from being overwritten and thus damaging your installation. Copies are made of the game folders in your Virtual Store folders and the game uses them instead of the ones in Programs. Installing empty templates then means you might edit the template files and folders in your game files but the game continues to use the unchanged versions in your Virtual Store folders. Hence, lots of unwanted NPCs and townies.

Solution: there several possible solutions
Some people recommend turning off the system altogether. However, virtualisation does provide a measure of security for Windows users which is important and if you are not too confident about handling such issues, turning off the system may not be a good idea. Another possibility is to edit or delete the files and folders in the Virtual Store folders in your system. This can mean making any changes you want twice (a big undertaking if you’re doing templates). Making the TS2 folders read only may also be necessary here.

However, there is a much more straightforward solution. The Virtual Store system only activates if you install the game to the default location (the Program Files or Program Files[x86] folders). Thus the easiest solution is to install the game into a non-default location. When installing the game,

1. When the option comes up to choose the location of your installation, choose advanced (or custom) install and change the location of where the game will install
2. For example you could change 'Program Files' to 'Games' which means that Sims 2 is installed to C:\Games\EA Games instead of the default C:\Program Files\EA Games. Another example might be installing to a different drive (if you have one).

Doing this means you can mod the game without having to deal with the duplicate files and folders in Virtual Store and can avoid having to grant administrator permissions all the time.

This entry was compiled from information reported by Airelda and SimSample. You can read about how Airelda reported and resolved the issue in this thread - http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...849#post5152849 See SimSample’s post 8 for a fuller explanation of the reason for the problem.


My main issue with the wiki is where would you put it. I would say it's an installation issue but the problem turns up when you attempt to mod the game.

File virtualisation and the virtual store folder are touched on several times in Sims 3 help articles, but not at all that I can see in Sims 2. It ought to be linked to in the article for uninstalling (clean install) and the articles that cover making empty neighbourhoods (such as hood creator guidelines). Other then that perhaps make it as a self contained article, link to it in the Game Help page maybe?
Sims 2 Game Help^wiki

That makes sense - I'll look at it tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who continued to contribute to this discussion! Simsample, it is really interesting that simply locating the game in a non-default location can avoid this problem. Thanks for sharing that knowledge!

Maxon, you did a great summary of the information here! Thanks for writing it up for posterity!