How to back up your game files!

[The Star Hermit]

General Information

I cannot stress enough the importance of making regular back ups of your saved game files, in order to have something to fall back on if anything so serious should go wrong with your game, that you are unable to play it or you have to reinstall, for example. In these types of circumstances, you would then be able to restore your game to the sate it was when you last saved. This can save long standing sim families from oblivion as well as disappointment when your hard work may seem to have all been for nothing.

It's well worth getting into the habit of making a back up on a regular basis, even if you think you don't need to, and compressing them if necessary in order to save disk space if you need to. You can also copy all or some of your backups to CD/DVD or other media for extra safety. In addition to backing up your entire game files, you can make extra backups of individual families and lots by using the 'Package to File' option that The Sims 2 provides.

One useful procedure I use is to package a completed and fully furnished lot to a file, before I start using it for sims. If ever I need to move a family out as part of bug and glitch problem solving, or if they are going to another lot, I have the option to restore the original lot from the package file back to it's original unplayed state, still fully furnished. Of course, if you have the Nightlife expansion you can now place the same lot multiple times anyway, but not all players have the expansion and it can still save problems if the property in the lots and houses bin become corrupted. Packaging individual lots is also useful if you want to share them and/or make them available for download without going through the exchange.

Backing Up All Files

The files that need to be backed are your actual saved game files that contain your neighbourhoods, sims, lots, downloads and picture folders etc, found in your own My Documents folder. These files are not the same as the main program files that the game uses to run itself, found in the Program files folder, so be sure you are backing up the correct ones.

1. Find and open the My Documents\EA Games folder. If you don't keep this on your desktop you can find it by double-clicking your My Computer icon, then double-clicking the folder with your login name on and finally double-clicking on the EA Games folder. You can also find this by navigating to C:\Documents and Settings\Insert login name here\My Documents\EA Games.
   
   Note: If you are using Windows Vista, My Documents is located at C:\users\YOUR USERNAME\Documents.
   
   
2. Inside the EA Games folder you should see another folder called The Sims 2. Right-click on The Sims 2 folder and choose the 'copy' option.
3. Right-click on your desktop and choose the 'paste' option. This puts a copy of your current The Sims 2 folder, containing all your saved game files, onto your desktop.
4. Move the copy of your The Sims 2 folder to any location you wish for safe keeping. This could be another folder in My Documents or better still, how about compressing it into a .zip file and put it onto CD/DVD for extra safety.

Packaging An Individual Lot

You can package an inhabited lot just as easily as a vacant one, but be aware that this will take the game longer to do as it has to sever all the outside relationships that those sims have with other sims, townies, NPC's etc. This happens because potentially you can place the lot with the sims included into another neighbourhood and you cannot have relationships spreading over more than one neighbourhood.

Should you ever wish to restore a packaged file that contains sims, either to the same or a different neighbourhood, they will have their same careers and internal household relationships but will have no family friends. To package a lot, with or without sims, follow the procedure below:

1. From the neighbourhood view screen, find the lot that you want to save/package.
2. Press the F2 button on your keyboard, or left click on the lots & houses button to open the lots and houses bin. If the lot is inhabited with sims, you can skip this step if you wish.
3. Left click on the lot you want to package so that you get the little white information screen come up.
4. Look on the left of the information screen for a small icon that looks like a small star or snowflake, if you hover over this you'll get a tool tip saying 'Package Lot'. For an example of what to look for: Click Here.
5. Left click the small package lot icon and you will see a small rectangular box come up saying 'Package Lot' and offering the option to 'Package Lot to the sims2.com' or 'Package Lot to a file'. For an example of what you will see: Click Here.
6. Select the 'Package Lot to a file' option, then click the tick button to begin the procedure.
7. Wait while the game packages and saves your lot, afterwards you will be presented with a message saying that the lot has been packaged and telling you the exact location it has been saved to. This is usually the PackagedLots folder that's in your usual The Sims 2 game files folder.

Once this lot has been packaged you can leave it there, move it elsewhere for safekeeping or even compress and upload it to a fansite for download by others. To restore a copy of the packaged lot to your game, all you need to do is find the location where you have stored it (if you have moved it) and double-click the file start the package installer. This will copy the file back into your game and place it into the lots and houses bin for you. You can then move it to any location in any neighbourhood you choose to.

Note: Packaging an individual lot only makes a copy of the lot and the original is left intact, including those inhabited with sims. It is only in the copied packaged file that the sims will lose their external relationships.