Okay its seems all other SC4 terrains are there, but cannot locate the University terrain, La Fiesta Tech, I would like to add roads to that lake/river, but I just cannot locate La Fiesta Tech sc4 file?

Finally got Driftwood, the way I used to dream of it, it took me 6 trys, back and forth with SimCity 4, I was able to add many new beach lots thanks the ability to add new roads, it wasn't all perfect, but that has to be expected from a mod.

Many new roads and existing roads became hidden, but most I was able to fix by temporary adding in new blank lots, but gotta be careful, due to me also heavily using Lot Expander, there are many lots that are there to stay, as if I pick them up, I'm unable to place them down again on the same spot, and some areas then become unusable due to how the game slightly modifies the terrian when you add in new lots. I don't have FT so its very limited for me.

Now im wondering about creating a roadless neighborhood, as roads in the 3 vacation neighborhoods bother me, it takes away my sense that actually on a vacation, anyone tried bulldozing all roads in SC4? and then importing it back by just copying the "roads"?

My computer hasn't been available for a couple of days, which is why I haven't gotten back to you about the La Fiesta Tech terrain. I should have a chance to look for it today.

In general, it's a good idea to copy both the roads and the terrain at the same time. This resolves any problems with the roads being at an unexpected level.

Creating a roadless neighborhood should work as you expect. However, you need to be aware that you will no longer be able to create lots or move lots within the neighborhood, since the game needs to "snap" the lot to a road.

You might be able to get around this issue by restoring the roads temporarily when creating and moving lots, then removing them again.

I've been curious about how a roadless neighborhood would work, ever since I saw Castaway Stories. Please let us know how it goes.

Exactly I will have to keep a template in .sc4 format of the original roads, in case I want to make big changes.

But I'm starting to work on it now, by making Twikkii Island completely roadless.

After that I expect you would have to edit every lot and erase all the road flooring, I must keep in mind that the car portals have to still be there, so you would have to leave some passage free of obstacles (trees, etc), so a tourist car can get from A+B and a Helicopter can land, but that would be barely noticeable

But Im sure this will work well in conjunction with Lot Expander. so you could join lots next to each where the roads once were.

Could you both try the new version attached here and let me know whether it solves your problems?

I have made two changes:

1) When HoodReplace is unable to find any neighborhoods in the default location, it will display an empty list. Use the Browse button to find your neighborhood package manually.

2) Used the information in this link to try to resolve x64 issues:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2005/aa718685.aspx

[Update:] Test version removed. This functionality has been incorporated into the newest release version 1.3.2, which you can download from the original post.

I can't seem to find the SC4 file for La Fiesta Tech, either. In fact, it doesn't look like EA shipped any new SC4 files with The Sims 2 University. Sorry.

Nope; same error. You want the full text again?

OK. Let me take another look at the neighborhood list code. I'm not sure why the Sims 2 Neighborhoods directory path is null, but HR should be able to do something better than crashing.

Even if it doesn`t do anything for me, at least this program runs! SimPE, Delphy`s Download Organizer, and MultiSims2PackExtract all crash on launch with a fatal error! HoodReplace "only" throws unhandled exceptions. In case this is relavent, it throws a different error when I click on the Browse button:Oh, and FWIW, I currently have DoubleDeluxe+H&MFashionStuff+IKEAHomeStuff installed. Come November, I`m installing Teen Style Stuff.

Edit: Could this error be related to why I cannot run SimPE on my system?

Sorry about double-posting, but this is majorly interesting!

Update: I just tried copying my install of HoodReplace from my networked drive to my local drive, and --pardon my Brittish--

IT BLOODY WELL WORKS!!!!

WHY would THAT make a difference?

Also, I`m going to try installing the other programs [mentioned previously] on my local drive, and see if that works for them, too!

Very interesting. This implies that the problem is that .NET cannot find the DLLs which the program requires. I can't imagine why it would make a difference to .NET whether a program is on a network drive or on your hard drive.

The relevant information here is "Failed to grant minimum permission requests." Looks like HoodReplace doesn't have permissions on your network drive. Very likely the same reason that SimPE, etc can't run.

In the interim, I created a version of HoodReplace which defaults the path to "C:\" if it can't find your "My Documents" folder. I don't think that I'll upload it until we find out how sharon's tests went.

Just created a roadless neighborhood, and yes it works all well, There wasn't many roads in Twikki Island anyway.

But its now a pleasure to play without seeing a road everywhere you look, I even forget my lots have a "road", cause the only time I even see a car, is when I arrive and leave on a vacation.

Had to add in some seegulls in the neighborhood view for some animation, without roads, its looks very much like a ghost town.

Anyway sounds like La Fiesta and the other 2 Universities are hardcoded in one of the packages, odd kindof since the vacation neighborhoods and freely available as SC4s. I think Downtown is missing also.

Im gonna attempt to create them from scratch within SC4, but must remember the mirror 64x64 rule for SC4 and Sims2 128x128 tile rule, oddly I must workout in the Sims2 Neighborhood view, which way is North? It never saids so its gonna be trial and error, and if Im successful, I've post the SC4 templates here...

Thank you, Mootilda! I much appreciate the efforts you are putting into finding the causes of this! Meanwhile, I have tried installing et al on my local drive, and they all work fine! Yay!

...at least they seem to; I haven`t tried anything serious with them, just tried to see if they run, not if they do anything useful! Delphy`s Download Organizer got the most extensive testing. SimPE seemed to take almost forever to load, with the only indication that anything was working being the fact that the memory in use shown in Task Manager would occasionally change, and that the CPU usage kept fluctuating.

Oh, and HoodReplace came up with the two lists populated, too! :D

Now if only I had any use for your very interesting program.

Hmm, do you want me to test if LotCorrupter, er, LotAdjuster and/or LotExpander work on my network drive and/or my local drive? I`d be glad to.

Excellent! If you actually get them recreated, please be sure to share them with the rest of the community.

It is really frustrating that EA didn't include so many of these terrains.

No need, unless you actually want to run either of these programs. Sounds like they are all running into the same issue. However, if you do test them, please let me know the results.

You should let Inge Jones, Delphy, etc. know about this issue, as well. If they're aware of the problem, it may save other people a lot of grief.

One other question: Are you mapping your network drive to a local drive (like Z:\)? Or, are you using the UNC form: \\MyNet\ShareName\... ?

Hokay, will do, as soon as I find a place to tell them. Just let me know if you want me to do any more testing, ok?

Oops, looks like you posted while I was updating my post with an additional question.

Are you mapping your network drive to a local drive (like Z:\)? Or, are you using the UNC form: \\MyNet\ShareName\... ?

Mapping to F:, actually. Why? would \\Mybookworld\public\..... work better, or worse?

I was talking with someone who has had problems with Visual C accessing "my documents" on a network drive using the UNC format... just trying to narrow down the problem.

I believe that mapping to F: is the preferred method.

Oddly enough, "My Documents" is on my local drive! I had the program on the network drive.

Come to think of it, some components of Windows seem to use the UNC form, even when given the mapped form. [I`m thinking Media Player; I have my audio collection on F:, too. It works fine.] I wonder if any other components might possibly translate inopportunately soon.

If Visual C# has a bug accessing network drives, then it probably doesn't matter whether the drives contain data or DLLs... the problem is with file access itself.

I finally had a chance to test the new version and I am happy to report that this version did work with a 64-bit OS, thank you. I didn't need to browse to the folders they showed up when the program loaded.

Excellent. Looks like I've finally found correct information on how to resolve the 64-bit issue. I'll make the same change to my other programs.

Mootilda do you still need the SC4 editor plugin? Or have you found another way round it? I am just in the process of prioritising Peter's next few SimPE projects.

I assume that you're asking about my problems extracting the SC4 file from the neighborhood terrain records.

I can open and view SC4 files just fine, but when I write them out again, the file format isn't recognized by SC4 (crashes). I'm not sure what SimPE changes when the file is written out.

I haven't found a workaround. I wasn't really expecting an editor plugin, since I expect that's quite a bit more work.