I recently took up the task of trying to get the base game running again, just for nostalgia’s sake. After absolutely fighting with it on my Razer laptop in Win10, I scooped up an otherwise e-waste laptop that runs Windows 7. Absolutely perfect Sims machine. The shadows just WORK, the resolution was perfect, and it loads breezily fast. Ahh, the fine vintage of an unpatched, unmodded base game … can’t wait to experience the bugs like it’s 2004!

With Win8.1 reaching end of life in a few months, this is a great time to scoop up a 2010-2012 Windows 7 laptop for Sims and other 2000s delights. People will practically pay you to get one out of their attic, and even a total craptop from the era is likely to run TS2 effortlessly. Just don’t forget to run it as an administrator. :-)

I'm Jealous of those graphics they look way better then I ever seen running the sims 2 what kind of graphics are you using, I got a graphics card from 2009

Another great advantage with the older laptops is that they don't overheat as easily and they actually have a disc slot so you can run the game from disc if you have access to it. I'm okay with installing the game from a download, but I like having the option - the disc install ran a bit smoother for me than both origin and the download version I had last. Congrats on having a well working game, Element! Wish you much joy playing.

What were the problems with Windows 10? A while ago I attempted to install the 4 disk base game on Windows 11 (though I used disk images as I have no disk drive) and they worked.

I've got TS2 UC installed on my ten year old Windows 7 laptop and it still runs almost like new.I just loaded myPleasantview game up earlier today and got an object added to my service center.My game's got top quality graphics and I've got it loaded with all kinds of Mods and tons of CC and in fact have several time what most others have and am one of the heaviest loads of Mods and CC in my game.

Congratulations !!!
And Welcome Back To The Sims 2 Family !!
:lovestruc :lovestruc :lovestruc :lovestruc :lovestruc :lovestruc

My full game runs very well on Windows 10 with 14 gigs of content and I know people running it on 11, so no need to go find a win 7 unless one wants a win 7. I actually had more pink on my last win 7 I bought (after people had switched to win 10) then I do now.

Enjoy your base game, but you can get all the packs.

I run my UC on Windows 10 and I had to make a few tweaks with the graphics rules maker to fix that because initially the terrain looked like something out of minecraft.
But with a few adjustments, shadow fixes, and terrain replacements, the graphics look as good as any other game for what I wanted in it.

Windows 10 is notorious for causing various graphical glitches in TS2 (pink flashing, black box shadows, etc). Most of them can be fixed with the Graphics Rules Maker, but it's obviously ideal if you can get a computer that just runs the game smoothly from the get-go.