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[fawbsmcgrawbs]

Hey there everyone! I have something of a technical question if anyone happens to know the answer. I have a sims 4 install on my laptop using my origin account that I’ve put a ton of time and effort into and don’t want getting ruined, however my partner really wants to play the Sims 4 as well and isn’t as into mods and stuff as I am. I was wondering if it’s possible for me to set them up with their own origin account on another profile on my computer, and if that would affect my game on my origin at all. I play strictly offline and haven’t updated in two years so I just don’t want anything wonky happening that could brick my save. Thanks in advance!

tldr: if my partner logs in to their sims game on their own origin account on another profile on my PC and updates it, would it forcibly update my game? Thus bricking my save. 

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@fawbsmcgrawbs  Generally speaking, you can only have one Sims 4 install on a computer at a time.  (There are ways around this, but you'd either have needed to set it up beforehand or move things around now, which would necessarily mean allowing Origin to update your game.)  So yes, if your partner were to sign into a separate Origin account and download Sims 4, Origin would instead just update the existing install.

Does your partner need an updated game?  If not, what you could do is move your user folder, as in, the Sims 4 folder that contains your saves and mods, out of Documents\Electronic Arts, or alternately rename it.  If the game can't find this folder, whether it's been moved or renamed, it'll create a new one with no content.  So your partner could play the game with no mods or custom content in their own user folder without touching any of your content.  When it's your turn to play, you could move your partner's folder or rename it and restore your own.

A number of us play like this, with several user folders for different purposes.  For example, we might have folders labeled "The Sims 4 X test" and "The Sims 4 Y test" with X and Y being names of tests we've recently done, plus a "The Sims 4 current" folder for a current save that we didn't want to involve in testing.  Whichever folder we want to use at the moment gets renamed to "The Sims 4" so the game reads it, and when we're done, it gets its other name back so another folder can be called "The Sims 4."

If this is more complicated than you want it to be, you could set up a new Windows account for your partner.  They could sign into your existing Origin account from there, but they'd have their own user folder by definition, since the Documents directory is specific to each Windows account.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@fawbsmcgrawbs  Generally speaking, you can only have one Sims 4 install on a computer at a time.  (There are ways around this, but you'd either have needed to set it up beforehand or move things around now, which would necessarily mean allowing Origin to update your game.)  So yes, if your partner were to sign into a separate Origin account and download Sims 4, Origin would instead just update the existing install.

Does your partner need an updated game?  If not, what you could do is move your user folder, as in, the Sims 4 folder that contains your saves and mods, out of Documents\Electronic Arts, or alternately rename it.  If the game can't find this folder, whether it's been moved or renamed, it'll create a new one with no content.  So your partner could play the game with no mods or custom content in their own user folder without touching any of your content.  When it's your turn to play, you could move your partner's folder or rename it and restore your own.

A number of us play like this, with several user folders for different purposes.  For example, we might have folders labeled "The Sims 4 X test" and "The Sims 4 Y test" with X and Y being names of tests we've recently done, plus a "The Sims 4 current" folder for a current save that we didn't want to involve in testing.  Whichever folder we want to use at the moment gets renamed to "The Sims 4" so the game reads it, and when we're done, it gets its other name back so another folder can be called "The Sims 4."

If this is more complicated than you want it to be, you could set up a new Windows account for your partner.  They could sign into your existing Origin account from there, but they'd have their own user folder by definition, since the Documents directory is specific to each Windows account.

[fawbsmcgrawbs]

Thank you so much! This answered my question perfectly <333