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Back Up -- Protecting Your Sims and Custom Content

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How would you feel if your Sims suddenly vanished?  What if you really did have to reinstall your game?  You need a back up!

  1. Go to My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2
  2. Right click the Neighborhoods folder and zip it (exact wording in the context menu depends on which zip program you're using)
  3. Right click on the Downloads folder and zip it
  4. If you create custom content with BodyShop, right click and zip SavedSims and Projects too.
  5. Change the file names to have the date in them (such as 2010-06-01 Neighborhoods.zip)
  6. Use the right mouse button to drag the zips somewhere safe, such as another hard drive or partition or an external drive or burn them to a CD or DVD

If you have custom lights installed, you also need a back up of Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Lights. 
If you have custom walls, fences, arches, arches, modular stairs, or fireplaces, also back up Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Catalog\Scripts\

Restoring from Backup

Strangelv noticed I hadn't given explicit direction on how to restore from backup....

For a full Neighorhood restore:

  1. Drag your Neighborhoods folder to your Desktop or other safe place.  This is a sanity check just in case your back up corrupt.
  2. Right click your most recent zip file and decompress it.  Exact context menu item text will depend on which compression/decompression program you use.
  3. Drag the freshly decompressed Neighborhoods folder into your My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2 folder.
  4. Play the game and make sure all your hoods load.  Open a sample house from your most favorite neighborhoods.
  5. Switch back to the Desktop or close the game.
  6. Delete the Neighborhoods folder that you dragged to a safe place in Step 1.

The process is similar for single neighborhoods and all the other files you zipped in the main tutorial.

  • By Miros at 07/10/2011 - 13:39
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One 'hood

You can also make a back up of just one 'hood by opening the Neighborhoods folder and performing Step 2 on the N### folder of your choice.

  • By Miros at 07/09/2011 - 10:00
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Neighborhood Manager

You can also make Neighborhood backups using SimPE's Neighborhood Manager.  That takes time and more disk space tho, because SimPE has to load and doesn't compress the files.

  • By Miros at 06/06/2010 - 13:42
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