Re-zipping the installation files - Is it safe to leave out Support folder?

DJ. wrote:Hi.

I am currently burning down a few install RARs I downloaded. (And by the way, I can't thank you enough for providing us all with the download links.) However, many of them are quite big in size.

I noticed The Sims Ultimate Simple Installer on these forums, which sort of made me think of this idea in the first place. However, I've already downloaded all the games I need; I just want to know is it safe to remove the Support folder from the already-downloaded installer RARs I downloaded (from G4TW).

The Support folder contains the super-patcher, Origin installer, readme files and some other EA Help support files.

For example: The Sims 3 Master Suite Stuff I downloaded weighs around 973 MB in size.
When I un-rar it, and re-rar it excluding the Support folder, the final RAR archive is only 88 MB in size.
The Sims 3 Fast Lane Stuff, which contains both PC and Mac game versions updates, had 2,35 GB in size before being shrunk down to just 183 MB!

I am unable to install my game right now, so I can't deliver results for this myself.

Of course, the prerequisites would be that the game has been patched to a version equivalent or higher than the expansion or Stuff pack's base version.

Alongside removing the patcher file, I'm really interested in finding out whether the Origin installer is also obsolete. As far as I remember, I've never had Origin installed on my old computer where I installed all The Sims 3 games (provided by G4TW). The same goes with the support files - whether the installer is going to return errors of not being able to read or find files (I remember the frustration with The Sims 2 installation - how I once experienced "Can't read Support\*.* Try again or uninstall" error).

Can someone look into this? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

, and I personally do not suggest you play around with that stuff, just to save a couple of Gigabytes filespace.   But of course, you may do as you wish, in the end.