Oh dear, I think I did a very bad thing.

I renamed my EA Games folder in my Documents folder, and when I tried to open my game, it started up a completely fresh The Sims 2 game. All my custom neighbourhoods and cc have disappeared. I tried to rename it back to "EA Games" but it wants to replace everything and I'm not sure what to do!?!

Have I lost everything or is there a way to retrieve my saved game?

Please, please help me!!!

Edit: Well okay, I got everything back, but now I have double copies of every single game file - ie: (2).package for everything. I think I can just delete all of these, yes?

Just delete the new folder and rename the old folder back. It sounds like you probably copied over everything and thus caused a lot of corruption.

Thank you, kestrellyn. Yes, I'm afraid you are right - everything was copied when the computer wanted to merge the old file with the new file.
I thought of doing as you suggest and delete the new folder and rename the old folder back, but I am afraid if I do that, I won't get my old hoods back.

***Sorry, I think I have confused people: there was NEVER a SECOND EA Games Folder. I renamed the ORIGINAL EA Games folder with a new name. Due to the File path issue pointed out by Simmer22, when I tried to open the folder and start my game, my saved game was not inside The Sims 2 folder, and a fresh game had been generated. That's why I was confused about where my saved game files were - they were not visible inside the The Sims 2 folder, ONLY the freshly generated game was there. That is why I could not take kestrellyn's suggestion and just delete the new folder and rename the old folder back to its proper name, because there was only ONE folder, not a new one and an old one.

If you didn't delete the old folder, everything is still there and you'll get all your hoods back.

No, I didn't delete the old folder, but where is it? And now that I have gotten the folder back to its original name of EA Games, if I just create a new one with the same name, what will happen? Will it want to merge again and make another set of duplicates?

If you want separate sims 2 folders you can, but you rename the 'The Sims 2' folder not the EA Games folder. Just add a word to the end of it.

The old folder is right where it was when you renamed it. Are you having trouble navigating your file browser?

Thanks Jo, I do that all the time for sure, but I’m not talking about The Sims 2 folder, I’m talking about the EA Games folder. I didn’t realize renaming the EA Games folder would change the contents of it.
Peni, I’m not having trouble navigating my file browser, I was just asking rhetorical questions there. I should say too that a second EA Games folder was NOT created - this happened only with the original EA Games folder - It threw me off because a fresh game was generated and my saved game including my downloads folder disappeared from the contents of that folder.
I think what I have to do know is go in and delete all the duplicate files, but in the meantime my saved game is back after I clicked yes to merge the files and it appears to be running fine although as you would expect with a fair bit of lag which I attribute to the duplicate files.
Please tell me if I am off track here!
Cheers, Vllygrl

Renaming the folder doesn't change the contents, it just changes the name.

So you did change the name of the EA Games Folder in your Documents? And when you started the Game it just has overwritten your Files that where in there? Or did you then had two Folders? If you say that it wants to overwrite your folder when you try to rename it back it means there is another folder in there with the same name... if you just would have that one altered Folder in there it wouldnt ask you to overwrite it... So at the end you merged the Files? That is not something you want to work with cause it will likely cause issues as kestrellyn said... Maybe you should think of starting new cause your save seems to be messed up alteast of what I read here... and with new I mean deleting the messed up save by deleting the "The Sims 2" folder in Documents -> EA Games -> The Sims 2... but thats your decide, I can't tell how it now looks

What I'm getting is that you've got one accidentally renamed folder (let's call it "PSgames" as an example), and one new folder the game made when you restarted (EA Games). The "PSgames" folder had your current files. The EA Games folder had a new copy of the game. You wanted your old game back.

(Deleting the new EA Games folder and renaming the wrongly named "PSgames" folder to "EA Games" would've saved you the trouble).

You tried to overwrite/merge the EA Games folder with the "PSgames" folder. This caused all the files to copy/merge over so most of them ended up with a (2) ending. I'm assuming not all of them, since files will have been added in a new game, but most.

You can try to fix it, by removing all the doubles that don't have the (2), and when you have done so, remove the (2) from the remaining files. I do suggest to backup the borked folder before starting this process, because it's easy to make mistakes, and it's always good to have a reset point. I can't guarantee this will work, though. It is possible some of the files have been overwritten during the merge. If so, this might not be fixable, and your game could end up with some serious issues, either short-term or long-term, depending on how bad the issues are.

If you had a backup of your game (I assume you don't - but here's one of the reasons why it's a good idea to keep one) you could've switched out the folders. You'd be resetting your game a bit, but not completely. It is possible you'll have to start over, or at best that you can find ways to extract sims/houses/etc. and rebuild your neighborhoods.

In the future, make sure you only rename the folder back to the proper name if this happens again, and NEVER merge sim-related folders. And also make sure you have a recent backup.

That’s exactly what I thought too, after all, it doesn’t change the contents of any other folder when you rename it. It DID, however, change the contents of the folder this case, which I can’t explain. Strange.

Edit to Add: Now I get why it did that - Simmer22's comment about file paths explains it!

It didn't. It doesn't work that way. The game generated a new folder called EA Games, but that's not the same one you renamed, because the one you renamed has a different name now. Because you renamed it.

Games and programs rely on file/folder paths. If these change - for instance if you change the name of a folder - the programs no longer point to the correct place, and an error is detected in the system. For some programs, it means the program isn't able to run, and throws an error whenever you try opening the program until the pathing is fixed. For other programs (like Sims and often other games too) they've got a full setup ready to go whenever they detect something has gone missing from a folder path, so whenever something's off, they run the setup from the install files.

Other folders, like "Pictures Summer 2019" and "Music 2008" (or whatever), you can rename whatever you like, because programs don't rely on their pathing or naming, and the contents won't change because they aren't connected to a program that will reinstall program-related files if the files or folders somehow disappear.

I see what you’re getting at, @kestrellyn and @Simmer22. Just to clarify, though, at no point was there 2 actual folders. Only the one. So after I renamed the folder and realized a fresh game had been created I immediately tried to rename the folder back to its proper name but it wouldn’t work. After several tries, that’s when I decided to follow the prompts and merge the files.
@Simmer22 your explanation is great - I understand better now just what happened and why. I do have an older backup which I will likely go to, but this was a quite new game which I hadn’t backed up yet because idiot. Thanks everyone for all the comments and help - I understand what went wrong now so I can make sure it doesn’t happen in future.

Yes, KiraNettt, I did rename the name of the EA Games Folder in my Documents. There were never 2 folders. It appeared as though the contents of the ORIGINAL folder had simply been overwritten although I did not get a dialogue box asking if I wanted to overwrite the files. The only dialogue box I got asked if I wanted to merge 2 versions of the game, which I ended up doing eventually because I thought it was the only way to get my saved game back and that did seem to work. However after reading these comments I am now wondering if indeed I should let it go and start over (cringe!!!)

I've changed my EA Games folder's name before just to make a back-up copy on more than one occasion and once forgot to change the name of the original uncompressed one back to it's original name and went to start my game only to get it generating a new game folder which I exited the game once I noticed and had to move that one somewhere else as a test folder and rename the other one back to EA Games.I tried loading my game up again and it loaded up with my usual game folder and all of my content was in there like usual.

If there was no second folder, what exactly did you try to rename? Are you saying you renamed the folder and it disappeared? You literally said you tried to rename the second folder, I'm not sure why you are denying this now.

I'm not sure where in my comments I literally said that, kestrellyn, and I'm sorry if my comments were a little confused and muddled and led people to think otherwise. In any case, I was just asking for a little help here, not trying to deny anything or deliberately mislead anyone. Anyone who knows me on these forums would know that is not my way. However, just in case, I will try to explain what happened more clearly:

***Sorry, I think I have confused people: there was NEVER a SECOND EA Games Folder. I renamed the ORIGINAL EA Games folder with a new name. Due to the File path issue pointed out by Simmer22, when I tried to open the folder and start my game, my saved game was not inside The Sims 2 folder, and a fresh game had been generated. That's why I was confused about where my saved game files were - they were not visible inside the The Sims 2 folder, ONLY the freshly generated game was there. That is why I could not take kestrellyn's suggestion and just delete the new folder and rename the old folder back to its proper name, because there was only ONE folder, not a new one and an old one.

@TadOlson - I think what I did was somewhat similar to what you described. I'm glad you got your game back!

Yes, you renamed the folder, and now you had a new folder with the new name you chose. Did you not? Are you saying you did not have a new folder with the new name you chose? In that case, what exactly did you try to rename later?

Here is the quote, in the very post I just quoted, where you said you tried to rename the folder back:



I'm really confused about what you are saying happened, if you are saying you did this but then also simultaneously that there was no second folder that you could have tried to rename.

If you'd deleted the newly made "EA Games" folder first, then renamed the old folder, it would've worked without any issues.

Two folders/files with the exact same name and file extension/type don't want to coexist in the same folder**. If you try to force them, Windows will ask if you want to merge them together, or if you want to keep both copies (which is essentially the same thing). I'm guessing something similar happened here?

(** You can have two files called "file" if one for instance is a Package file and the other is a Jpg file - then they're not the same file type and they don't clash with each other - but you can't have two "file.package" or two folders named "EA Games" in the same main folder. You can rename the one you want to keep to "EA Games 1", delete the folder you don't want to keep, rename the other to "EA Games", and that would also solve the issue of double folders, or files).

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So I'm guessing there were two folders (either EA Games or The Sims 2), but they were merged together by Windows when you renamed the folder. There's a small chance the old game was wiped and restarted, but it would depend on game version and possibly on what was done with the folders (a bit difficult to say, really).

The easiest way to fix this is to use the backup. It's possible you can salvage the game using the method I suggested in my post above, but there's no guarantee you're going to clean out all the accidentally merged files.

You are very good at guessing what happened, Simmer22! That is pretty much it in a nutshell. I agree with your assessment, so I will be going to the backup rather than try to clean out the duplicates and risk missing some of them. Lesson learned! Once again, thank you for all the great explanations and all your help! :D

You know the rest of the people in this thread have been telling you the same thing, right, and you just continually insisted that they couldn't possibly be right?

^ The problem appears to be that the two folders had merged together, because the OP attempted to rename it into the same name as the new one while both folders were present (and clicked "yes" to merging them/keeping both copies of files). If the new folder had been deleted and the old one had been properly renamed, then the issue wouldn't have happened.

(Forgot to say above that if you are in a similar situation again and get the question of whether you want to merge the folders, you usually get the option to click "no", and the folder name should go back to the previous name, and/or continue being in a renaming state without any changes happening to the folders. It's meant as a safeguard against accidental mishaps).

@kestrellyn: I’m not insisting on anything, I can only describe what I saw - perhaps there was a second folder and I just didn’t see it or realize it was there. I’m not trying to be rude or an ass so please cut me some slack and give me the benefit of the doubt that I genuinely have been trying to figure it out without any other agenda. Thank you.