UNZIPPING AND STORING THE SC4 AND NEIGHBORHOOD FILES

Be sure that your game is NOT running when you begin to do the following steps. If your ZIP utility is set to discard the .zip files after expansion, you may want to make a copy of them first, so you can save them for later (in case you have a bad game crash sometime).

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01--Make a temporary file folder on your Windows desktop.

02--EXPAND the SC4 Terrain .zip file to the temporary folder.

03--Open the expanded folder. Inside are four or six files (depending on when the SC4 Terrain files were made). Move all files to the following directory: C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\SC4Terrains.

04--EXPAND the Nxxx.zip file to the temporary folder.

05--Check inside the expanded Nxxx folder. I have found that sometimes there is ANOTHER Nxxx folder inside of the expanded one, depending on the expander you use. Move this ENTIRE Nxxx folder (with everything still inside it) to the following directory: C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods. IMPORTANT: You do NOT want the Nxxx folder with another Nxxx folder inside of it. You want ONLY the Nxxx folder that has OTHER folders directly inside of it...take THAT folder out and move it to the Neighborhoods folder.

If you follow the Lot links and choose to download any of them (which are regular TS2pack installers) from the Exchange, you must double-click on each one to install it to the game. They will NOT go onto the lots in the new neighborhood. They will go into your Lot Catalog (bin) in the game. You then use them just as you would any other lot in the bin. If you store the files on your hard drive, they can be installed many times, for use in more than one neighborhood.

To trade one of the downloaded lots for an already-placed (empty) lot in your new Custom Neighborhood, just bulldoze the existing lot, then add the bin lot to the resulting empty space in the neighborhood.