The Sims 3 Custom Launcher by Hundefreund

Description
This is a Custom Launcher I created that's supposed to install things while avoiding problems that the original Sims 3 Launcher tends to make. Right now it is not possible to install things, that's planned for a future update. All you can do right now is look at Sims3Packs and Packages and decrypt them.

Installation
Download your preferred version (either 32 Bit or 64 Bit) and then just extract the contents wherever you like. Then start "Launcher.exe" to start the programme. This programme does not need to be installed, you can simply start it.

Uninstall
Just delete the extracted folder. Also, if you want to delete the preferred settings that were stored, then delete the folder "HFCL_Data" that was created inside your Sims 3 User Files Directory (the one where your savefiles are stored).

Requirements
You need to have Microsoft's .Net Framework 4 in order to use this programme. (It's the same requirement that S3PE has.)
Also, you might need to manually download and install the patch "Microsoft .NET Framework 4 KB2468871" as well.

Technical Info
You can find the source code of this programme on GitHub:
https://github.com/HundefreundTS3/HFFS3CustomLauncher

Notice for Linux Users
I got my programme working on Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS. I used the following six commands in a terminal:
sudo apt-get install wine
sudo apt install winetricks
winetricks -q dotnet40_kb2468871
winetricks -q dxvk
wine reg ADD 'HKCU\Software\Wine\DllOverrides' '/f' '/v' 'd3d9' '/t' 'REG_SZ' '/d' 'native'
wine reg add "HKCU\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Avalon.Graphics" /v DisableHWAcceleration /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Then, to start the programme, I switched to the destination of the execution file and entered the following command:
wine Launcher.exe

I cannot promise that it works 100% but the basic features all worked for me, at least with Ubuntu.

Explanation
Happy 17th birthday, The Sims 3! What a number... I've always loved playing it, even despite the problems. I've also always liked what the Community has done to expand the game even more. And now, I think it is high time that I finally contribute as well. So... I want to present to you my very own, personal Custom Launcher for The Sims 3! The original Launcher has always produced problems and headaches, I'm very aware since I've experienced them as well. But I've found out how the install process actually works, and I came to the conclusion: I can reproduce that. No, more than that: I can even improve on it! Well... at least that's the end goal. Right now, the only thing you can do with my Custom Launcher is taking a look at your Sims3Packs and Packages and also decrypt them if you like. However, I've already implemented several quality-of-life features that the original Launcher lacks, like sorting and using in fullscreen and viewing several more columns which can be hidden and unhidden, resized, and reorganised to your heart's content. But you still need the original Launcher for installation right now. I'm currently working on implementing the installation feature, and I even plan on adding several more accommodations: For example, I found out that you can actually install a bare minimum while placing most of the actual stuff into the Mods folder. It will still be registered as being installed, which means that it would be possible to have everything registered as installed while using Create-A-World in this way - no more crashes due to too many installed things! Also, I could make it so that you can merge files in such a way so that my programme can unmerge them for you at any time. And that's just the beginning, there's even more I want to implement. We'll see if I get to it.