This is what it happens (I've never had this problem until today, and I've been playing a long time): I open the launcher using Fun with Pets (like I always do). I click to start the game. It skips the opening song and video (that's never happened before), and it goes straight to the blue title screen (reading: The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Copyright blah blah blah...") and just sits there doing nothing. The game never loads the neighborhood menus or anything.

I have tried:
- ctrl+alt+delete, open the task menu, click Sims 2 and end task
- sometimes when I do this I get "application has to close" error (I can't remember exactly what it says but that's what it says in a nutshell)
- I have had this error before many times, but never when I've tried starting the game
- starting with Apartment Life CD but computer says to use Fun with Pets (like I always use)
- cleaning the CD
- use disc cleaner to clean the CD drive itself
- searched all over the internet but haven't found anything with quite the same problem that I have
- Fun with Pets Collection CD back in and tried starting the game a number of times

As far as I know, I have all the patches (I think that's what they're called); I did that a year or so ago when ya'll told me to uninstall and reinstall. I've never downloaded customized content (I think that's what it's called). I haven't done anything different from any other time. I have all the expansions and stuff packs except for the Holiday Stuff.

Your help is greatly appreciated, but please speak human language as much as you can (I don't understand all that computer jibberish ).

Since you haven't mentioned the cache files, have you tried deleting them?
(Accessory.cache, groups.cache, ContentRegistry and Cigen.package - two or more are usually found in the "...Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2" directory)

Are you online when you're trying to launch? I used to have a similar problem, and found disconnecting from the internet helped (I found an explanation for this somewhere, but like you I'm not technically minded and the details are long forgotten!).

Moved to help

I have no idea what you're talking about. You're speaking jibberish to me.

My computer is always connected to the wifi, I'll give it a shot.

In
C:\Users\yourname\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 (this is Win10 - but the same place whatever version of Windoze you have)

There are a bunch of files - names given above (Accessory.cache, groups.cache, ContentRegistry and Cigen.package - you may have two or more of them) - delete them.

I haven't had time to mess with the game since I first posted for help. I greatly appreciate the help, thank you. Just a few minutes ago I disconnected from the internet, tried the game again, and it worked just as it should. Hooray for an easy fix!