When I first got the UC, I loaded it up and played for maybe 20 minutes before quitting (didn't save). I downloaded some default replacements and some recommended mods (Scriptorium, CEP, as well as some from Pescado). I also download the Uber-Megahood. I opened the game, it loaded fine to the hood view. When I selected a neighborhood though, it would start to load and then just stop. It didn't technically crash, the music is still playing and the process is still "running" but it's not loading and the hourglass as stopped spinning. Eventually I have to end the process with the task manager.

After many tests, I am now all the way back to vanilla. I've removed my mods and default replacements, uninstalled CEP and Scriptorium, and removed the hood. And still, none of the hoods will load. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong? Or do I need to just uninstall the entire collection and restart from scratch?

There is an issue with the game being in a different place - files and folders-wise - than where they used to be.

If you are using Windows 8/8.1 you will need to turn off write protect in both the programs and my doc for UC to work and some even have had to turn off user account control.

Nope, I have Windows 7 so that's not it. And maxon, I haven't played TS2 in a really, really long time so I'm not even sure where they USED to be!

I decided to uninstall and reinstall completely. After that, I thought it would work. Nope, completely vanilla, nothing touched and I still can't load any hoods. I've tried starting from my desktop shortcut, in windowed mode, and from Origin. The only difference being that when I tried from Origin, I couldn't even get my task manager to show so I could end the task. I had to switch users and then log back in to that account, just to end the task.

Sounds like you anti virus program or something is blocking your game from starting.

Disconnect from the internet and turn off you VP and then try it.

That would enable the game to start/load to the main menu but prevent the hood from loading? Strange. At this point, I suppose I'll try anything. I've contacted EA Support who insists it's because my graphics driver isn't updated. I'm pretty sure they're wrong since yes, they're out of date but the latest update is from April and I was able to play in July. Thanks marka. I will try that as soon as I am done with EA.

7 has UAC. I have it turned off. I don't know if that would help--in general UAC is obnoxious for how I use my computer.

However, some folks have had trouble with the game not recognizing their newer-than-game graphics card. I doubt that's it--but if EA thinks it's graphics, it's on the list of possibilities.

How impatient are you? How long do you wait before you kill the process? My game often goes to screen saver during the loading process . . . side effect of having small kids is I have a short time set to lock the system . . . and when I unlock the computer, frequently task manager tells me the game is not responding. I just wait, and eventually it gets itself into gear. Why the computer thinks the game is not responding when it's loading, I don't know, but I don't worry about that. Try telling it to load the neighborhood right before you go out for a few hours and see if it's loaded when you get back.

I'm not sure what UAC is.

I've updated the graphics driver and that's not it. I'm still having issues. I also tried disconnecting from the internet and disabling avast. No go.

The game doesn't tell me it's not responding. As far as task manager is concerned, it's still running and fine. The hourglass just stops spinning and nothing happens. Sometimes the hood load gets all the way through "Creating Magic" (which I think is the last one) but the actual neighborhood never loads. I've waited for over 20 minutes before I kill the process. When I played in July, I didn't have to wait that long and the game never did this. If it takes a few hours to load, I might as well not play. My TS3, which has over 6GBs of custom content and probably almost double that of store content, takes less time to load than that.

User Account Control. It keeps you from altering files that Microsoft thinks you ought not want to alter without entering a password to confirm that you want to alter them. Which is fine as far as it goes, unless you want to alter a lot of those files, or you play a game that wants to alter files. Updating graphics drivers doesn't change that Sims 2 is old and doesn't know how to see them. There are some threads around here about that, I haven't followed them as my graphics card behaves (mostly, as long as I don't allow certain Windows updates--but that's a different issue because those just force the game to the lowest possible screen size). But it's worth looking into to see if your graphics card is one that the game doesn't recognize.

The first load always takes longer because it has to attach all the stealth sub-neighborhoods. You could speed this up by disabling them, but then you won't have their features. Creating Magic is the Apartment Life stealth sub-neighborhood, which should be the last. It only has to do those the first load-up on a new neighborhood. I've found that UC is slightly slower than my old disc-based game on all loading screens--probably because I have new stuff-packs in it, but not nearly as much as you're describing.

I finally got it working after talking with 2 more EA reps. I had to do a complete manual uninstall including removing the left behind registry files. It works now. Not sure what got corrupt. It's been SO long since I played TS2 and, since the UC is a somewhat different set-up, maybe I installed my CC incorrectly and corrupted things.

Thank you everyone for the advice.