This article describes how to get the original Maxis Lots into your Lots and Houses bin.

Credits: The concept for this article was envisaged by Angel f.

Have you ever bulldozed a Maxis lot, and later wished that you could get it back? Have you often wished you could have Mortimer Goth's house in Veronaville? The files for all these lots are right there, on your computer. This article describes how you can get at them and put them into your Lots and Houses bin.


This article requires the use of The Sims2Pack Clean Installer.

Keywords: lot, original, Maxis, restore

How to get an existing Lot into the Lots and Houses Bin, without deleting the original.

I like some of the Maxis lots, and often wish I could use them in other neighbourhoods. It is quite easy to package an existing lot so that you can install it to the lots and houses bin. You can use this method for any lot- including those you have built yourself.

FIRST,BACK UP YOUR FILES!

Go in game and choose your lot. I have chosen 88, Road To Nowhere, Strangetown.

All I need to do is click on the 'package Lot' symbol, the one that resembles an asterisk on top of an arrow.

Choose 'Package to file', and after a short pause a pop-up will appear to tell you where the packaged file is saved.

Exit the game and go to that location- usually My Documents\ EA Games\ The Sims 2\ Packaged Lots. Double click the Sims2Pack that the game just created.
You will notice that, along with the lot is packaged every recolour of every object you have in game, plus possibly a few hacks (if you have them). You do not want these to be reinstalled to your game, so what you need to do is click the 'Select lot file only' button on the Clean Installer window, so that the top item- the lot itself- is the only thing selected.

Click the install button, and install to the default location- this will be the teleport folder.

Now close the Clean Installer, and load up the game. Enter a neighbourhood and check out the Lots and Houses bin.
Your lot will be there, and you can now place it in any neighbourhood.


Important Note: If you are packaging any of the inhabited lots, for example The Smith's house in Strangetown, you MUST NOT use this method. Doing so will corrupt your new neighbourhood.


You must make sure that you select the lot segment only when you install the Sims2Pack of an inhabited house. Installing inhabited lots into the game is known to corrupt neighbourhoods and cause gameplay problems, due to the memories and associations that are packaged along with the family.

How to restore deleted Maxis lots, without having to reinstall the game.

This method allows you to get back those Maxis lots you have deleted, altered or corrupted.

This does not describe how to restore an entire neighbourhood, if you wish to know how to do that then please click here.

FIRST,BACK UP YOUR FILES!

In my game, the Pleasant family moved away, and I bulldozed their house. I would now like a copy back in my game, so I am going to describe how to do that. This same method could then be used to retrieve any other Maxis Lot.

Go to Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Neighbourhoods\ N001\ Lots.
Copy this folder to the desktop- DO NOT cut- this is so that I make sure I don't accidentally delete the originals!

Now open the Sims2Pack Clean Installer. Click on the arrow next to 'Choose Directory' and scroll down to where it says 'Browse'. Now navigate to the Lots folder you just copied to the desktop:

Click the Ok button and wait for a few moments whilst the files are read.
Now you will see a list of lots- but they are not named in a very instructive manner, and how will I find out which one is the Pleasants' house? Well, the Clean Installer will show the thumbnails of the lots- just click on the top lot and you will see an image appear. If you use your mouse or the arrow keys, you can scroll down this list, previewing each one. Eventually I find the house I want- Lot Number 68.

I can move that house to the desktop by right clicking on it and choosing 'move to' and browsing to the desktop.

Now I can get rid of the 'Lots' folder that I copied to the desktop- I have found my lot, and this is only a copy- so delete it.
Next, I need to open up my Lot Catalog folder- this is where all of the files for the houses in the Lots and Houses Bin are stored. It is in My Documents\ EA Games\ The Sims 2\ Lot Catalog. Drag your Lot file from the desktop into the Lot Catalog Folder.

Now you can see that the name of the Pleasants' house does not match that of those in the Lots Catalog. So you need to right click and choose 'rename' on the file, and name it cx_000000xx, the xx being a number that is not yet utilised in your folder (yours will vary from mine, depending on how many lots you have installed into your game). You could choose a higher figure if your numbers are all consecutive. I renamed mine to cx_00000026, to fill a gap.
Now, close all open windows and load up your game. Go into a neighbourhood and enter the Lots and Houses bin. Voila, you should now see an extra lot- the one you just installed. It is ready for you to place into the game.


You can retrieve any of the Maxis Lots using this method- you just need to know the file locations.

The neighbourhood lots for Pleasantview are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Neighbourhoods\ N001\ Lots.
The neighbourhood lots for Strangetown are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Neighbourhoods\ N002\ Lots.
The neighbourhood lots for Veronaville are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Neighbourhoods\ N003\ Lots.
The Lot Bin lots for the base game are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Lot Catalog.

The neighbourhood and Lot Bin lots for University Campus 'Sim State' are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 University\ TS Data\ Res\ Neighbourhood Template\ U001\ Lots.
The neighbourhood and Lot Bin lots for University Campus 'La Fiesta Tech' are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 University\ TS Data\ Res\ Neighbourhood Template\ U002\ Lots.
The neighbourhood and Lot Bin lots for University Campus 'Academie Le Tour' are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 University\ TS Data\ Res\ Neighbourhood Template\ U003\ Lots.

The neighbourhood lots for Nightlife 'Downtown' are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 Nightlife\ TS Data\ Res\ Neighbourhood Template\ D001\ Lots.
The Lot bin lots for Nightlife are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 Nightlife\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Lot Catalog.

The neighbourhood lots for Open For Business 'Bluewater Village' are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 Open For Business\ TS Data\ Res\ Neighbourhood Template\ B001\ Lots.
The Lot bin lots for Open For Business 'Bluewater Village' are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 Open For Business\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Lot Catalog.

The Lot Bin lots for Family Fun Stuff are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Lot Catalog.
The Lot Bin lots for Glamour Life Stuff are located in Program Files\ EA Games\ The Sims 2 Glamour Life Stuff\ TS Data\ Res\ User Data\ Lot Catalog.

If you want to take the easy option...

You can download some of the Maxis Lots from Sim Estates 2.
You need to go to Real Estate> Original Lots- some of the original Lot Bin families are also available for Download.
You need a File Planet account to be able to download from this site, but this is free to set up.

If you have a lot in the Lots and Houses bin that is crashing the game...

If your game is crashing when you click on a particular lot in the lots and houses bin, then you need to remove that file.

For more details, click here.