[The Star Hermit]

No I didn't, there isn't one available for Superstar anyway. You can find all available patches here on The Sims website.

Funnily enough though, I did have a similar problem with Superstar when I originally switched to XP, in the end I un-installed the game and deleted all the remaining The Sims folders in C:\Program Files\Maxis.

I was able to install the game and all the expansion then with no problem, which suggests to me I had corruptions to my game files.

It may be worth trying, if you don't want to lose any of your current sims, go to C:\Program Files\Maxis and move The Sims folder out to another location before you uninstall, to save it. If re-installing and creating a new set of neighbourhoods solves the problem then you've got an idea where the problem lies.