The Sims 2 No CD crack not working.

Hello!

I installed The Sims 2 UC from Origin on my brand new Windows 10 computer. I followed instructions I found to remove Securom, and then downloaded a No CD crack and pasted the .exe file in the correct folder (C:\Program files (x86)\Originames\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSBin) and overwrote the existing file.

When I double click on the icon to launch the game, I get a blank error message.



I had put a backup of the original file, before I pasted the crack, onto a flash drive. When this didn't work I overwrote again with the original and I am still getting the same blank error message - now I can't launch the game at all, either way.

No idea what to do? I used the file in the thread below for the no CD crack:

https://games4theworld.forumotion.com/t22306-the-sims-2-ultimate-collection-possible-lag-issues-on-windows-10

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hello and welcome to the forum @kayleigh83,

The only explanation I can give at this point is that either Windows Defender and/or your third-party anti-virus program are messing with the file.

I would add this particular folder location to the "exclusions" in BOTH Windows Defender and any other security software you may have installed on that computer.

After which you should re-download the NoCD file (from the topic you linked to), and re-apply the file. Good luck for now !

Hi there, thanks for the reply. I went to open Windows Defender and it advised it's turned off and isn't monitoring my computer. There is a McAfee Live Safe which is apparently active but I'm not sure how to add this folder as an exclusion. I'll poke around a little and see if I can figure it out, but if anyone knows and can help me find it that would be great.

I am still confused though how it could refuse to run still, when I replace it with the original game file rather than the crack?

kayleigh83 wrote:Hi there, thanks for the reply. I went to open Windows Defender and it advised it's turned off and isn't monitoring my computer. There is a McAfee Live Safe which is apparently active but I'm not sure how to add this folder as an exclusion. I'll poke around a little and see if I can figure it out, but if anyone knows and can help me find it that would be great.

I am still confused though how it could refuse to run still, when I replace it with the original game file rather than the crack?

Try this: open the .RAR file of the NoCD-download. Then navigate to the appropriate folder location. Drag and drop the file from the .RAR, directly into the folder, and replace the existing file.

Also try running the game as Administrator (right-click -> run as Administrator).

And yes, not all people are fond of NoCD-files. I'm sure that by now, certain people have "reported" this particular NoCD-file as suspicious, in their anti-virus software. And then anti-virus companies have added the file signature to their virus databases...which is why problems like the one you are facing right now are becoming more and more common. 

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

kayleigh83 wrote:Hi there, thanks for the reply. I went to open Windows Defender and it advised it's turned off and isn't monitoring my computer. There is a McAfee Live Safe which is apparently active but I'm not sure how to add this folder as an exclusion. I'll poke around a little and see if I can figure it out, but if anyone knows and can help me find it that would be great.

I am still confused though how it could refuse to run still, when I replace it with the original game file rather than the crack?

Try this: open the .RAR file of the NoCD-download. Then navigate to the appropriate folder location. Drag and drop the file from the .RAR, directly into the folder, and replace the existing file.

Also try running the game as Administrator (right-click -> run as Administrator).

And yes, not all people are fond of NoCD-files. I'm sure that by now, certain people have "reported" this particular NoCD-file as suspicious, in their anti-virus software. And then anti-virus companies have added the file signature to their virus databases...which is why problems like the one you are facing right now are becoming more and more common. 

Tried this and still no luck.  I'm not sure what else to do except back up my game files, uninstall and reinstall at this point?

kayleigh83 wrote:
Tried this and still no luck.  I'm not sure what else to do except back up my game files, uninstall and reinstall at this point?

Maybe you want to try uninstalling your main anti-virus program (McAffee) first ? And then re-boot the computer, and re-apply the file. You could also try to open Origin and logging into your account.

Right-click on your Ultimate Colection of The Sims 2 and choose "repair". After that, log out of Origin. Note that you will need to re-do the procedure of removing SecuROM and re-applying the crack.

But "uninstalling" means you will need to re-download the game from Origin too. And that is not necessary at all.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

kayleigh83 wrote:
Tried this and still no luck.  I'm not sure what else to do except back up my game files, uninstall and reinstall at this point?

Maybe you want to try uninstalling your main anti-virus program (McAffee) first ? And then re-boot the computer, and re-apply the file. You could also try to open Origin and logging into your account.

Right-click on your Ultimate Colection of The Sims 2 and choose "repair". After that, log out of Origin. Note that you will need to re-do the procedure of removing SecuROM and re-applying the crack.

But "uninstalling" means you will need to re-download the game from Origin too. And that is not necessary at all.

I will give those a shot. I'm currently backing up my game files just in case, which takes a while. I'll have to try this in the morning and see - I'd like reinstalling to be a last resort! Do you think it's best to try the repair function through Origin first, or the virus uninstall? Or does it matter? And I'm assuming the repair function would have no effect on my existing downloads/neighborhoods/Sims etc?

Thanks for your help and quick replies, it's much appreciated. I'll report back tomorrow about how it's going!

kayleigh83 wrote:
I will give those a shot. I'm currently backing up my game files just in case, which takes a while. I'll have to try this in the morning and see - I'd like reinstalling to be a last resort! Do you think it's best to try the repair function through Origin first, or the virus uninstall? Or does it matter? And I'm assuming the repair function would have no effect on my existing downloads/neighborhoods/Sims etc?

Thanks for your help and quick replies, it's much appreciated. I'll report back tomorrow about how it's going!

No, "repairing" the game will only check the file integrity of the program itself. Meaning, that if defective files were found, they would be re-downloaded through Origin. But normally that should not affect your saves at all. Of course, to be absolutely sure, you can/should still back up your stuff.

My suspicion is that it's an anti-virus issue. But ultimately, what you want to try first is up to you in the end.

Good luck again, and take your time !

So, I tried uninstalling the anti-virus, no luck. Tried repairing the game from within Origin, still no luck.

I uninstalled the game, and reinstalled it - noticed that it had left the My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection directory intact though. Tried to load the game after reinstall, SAME issue. Tried pulling the Downloads folder out just because, still nothing.

I've uninstalled the game again, and deleted the My Documents folders (I made a backup last night) and I'm trying to reinstall again. I'm totally at a loss for why my game will not load AT ALL. The error message is completely blank so I really don't know where to begin. I had the game loading and playing fine except for the laggy buy/build mode which was why I tried the remove Securom/No CD crack route, but now ever since I did that my system will not load the game at all. I am really hoping this next reinstall will fix it, I really am at a loss....

EDIT: While obsessively doing more research as I wait for the game to download, I found something that reminded me about deleting the cache files, some other people were getting the blank error message and that worked for them at the time. I'm hoping this will work for me - since the game will have to regenerate the whole My Documents path on this reinstall, if that was the issue this should do it. God I hope that was the issue!!

Well, you don't have to use No CD Crack if you download The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, because The Sims 2 UC doesn't need CD. Esentially, pirated and Origin one are completely same, but, pirated could cause antivirus to delete crack.

simmer_tony wrote:Well, you don't have to use No CD Crack if you download The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, because The Sims 2 UC doesn't need CD. Esentially, pirated and Origin one are completely same, but, pirated could cause antivirus to delete crack.

The post I linked up above which had directions on the no CD crack advised that the Origin UC contains Securom, and once you remove it you need to use a no CD crack to get around the system launching the game via Origin and thus automatically reinstalling Securom.

I have The Sims 2 UC and it doesn't have any problem for me even if it uses SecuROM.

simmer_tony wrote:I have The Sims 2 UC and it doesn't have any problem for me even if it uses SecuROM.

 
It ran fine for me before I tried removing Securom/applying the no CD crack, except that the Build and Buy modes were EXTREMELY slow. When I did some research I found this was a common problem and this was the accepted solution (I found it on another site besides on here). That lagging issue was the only problem I was troubleshooting and why I went the Securom/no CD crack route. I definitely wouldn't have done it just for fun.

EDIT: After completely removing all files and reinstalling, the game launched. My hunch now is that it was the cache files after all. I'm going to reload my files and run the game again. I may try to load the no CD crack again and delete the cache files before I launch and see if it works!

simmer_tony wrote:Well, you don't have to use No CD Crack if you download The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, because The Sims 2 UC doesn't need CD. Esentially, pirated and Origin one are completely same, but, pirated could cause antivirus to delete crack.

The pirated UC causes problems for some people though, even if the game "runs fine" seemingly, and you're doing nothing wrong by using a NoCD-crack file in the UC.

kayleigh83 wrote: 
It ran fine for me before I tried removing Securom/applying the no CD crack, except that the Build and Buy modes were EXTREMELY slow. When I did some research I found this was a common problem and this was the accepted solution (I found it on another site besides on here). That lagging issue was the only problem I was troubleshooting and why I went the Securom/no CD crack route. I definitely wouldn't have done it just for fun.

EDIT: After completely removing all files and reinstalling, the game launched. My hunch now is that it was the cache files after all. I'm going to reload my files and run the game again. I may try to load the no CD crack again and delete the cache files before I launch and see if it works!

Interesting solution...do keep us posted !

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

simmer_tony wrote:Well, you don't have to use No CD Crack if you download The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, because The Sims 2 UC doesn't need CD. Esentially, pirated and Origin one are completely same, but, pirated could cause antivirus to delete crack.

The pirated UC causes problems for some people though, even if the game "runs fine" seemingly, and you're doing nothing wrong by using a NoCD-crack file in the UC.

kayleigh83 wrote: 
It ran fine for me before I tried removing Securom/applying the no CD crack, except that the Build and Buy modes were EXTREMELY slow. When I did some research I found this was a common problem and this was the accepted solution (I found it on another site besides on here). That lagging issue was the only problem I was troubleshooting and why I went the Securom/no CD crack route. I definitely wouldn't have done it just for fun.

EDIT: After completely removing all files and reinstalling, the game launched. My hunch now is that it was the cache files after all. I'm going to reload my files and run the game again. I may try to load the no CD crack again and delete the cache files before I launch and see if it works!

Interesting solution...do keep us posted !

WOOHOO!!

The cache files were the issue. I retraced all steps from install including removing Securom and applying the no CD crack, the only thing I did different was remove the cache files before launching and it was all good. Hallelujah!

Thanks for your help! 

kayleigh83 wrote:
WOOHOO!!

The cache files were the issue. I retraced all steps from install including removing Securom and applying the no CD crack, the only thing I did different was remove the cache files before launching and it was all good. Hallelujah!

Thanks for your help! 

Which files did you delete ?   The ones that were mentioned here ?
https://games4theworld.forumotion.com/t22860-deleting-cache-files-in-the-sims-2

Or other stuff (too) ? And it's good to hear you got the game working fine now !

Yes, it was those ones.

However I was playing for close to an hour and then the game suddenly crashed? So now off to figure out what that's all about...

Sorry for the late reply @kayleigh83,

II.) DEP issues.
Try navigating to the appropriate section in your System Control Panel. 

Control Panel/System/Advanced (tab)/Performance/Settings/Data Execution Prevention






Tick the option marked in my screenshot and then click "Apply" -> "OK". Re-boot the computer, and then try the game again.