Hi everyone,
So I too have purchased a Windows 8 (actually win 8.1) laptop over a month ago and would very much like to continue playing with SIMS 2.
I have a rather long story (sorry) so I have just put Contest and Problem so if you do not want to read through all of it you can get straight to the point.
CONTEST
At first it hadn't even occurred to me that the game may not be compatible with Win 8, I have been passing it from laptop to laptop for years (Win XP – Win 7) and never had any problem.
I have always simply installed the base and the expansions (trying to follow the order I purchased them, but sometimes I was not sure and I surely must have done it wrong) and then copied and pasted the old saved games (EA GAMES – The Sims 2 folder) over the EA GAMES folder which the game creates automatically while installing.
That is what I did also on my new computer and at first it worked wonderfully. The different expansions updated themselves while installing and the game loaded perfectly with my old saved games. I actually played the game and saved it and loaded it again.
After a while I started having problems, like the game crashed once while a robber was entering a house and I was trying (possibly too hard) to stop my sims from jumping out of bed to go see what was happening. I was trying to have them go back to bed and “let the police do their job”.
I also noticed the game was especially slow when changing the clothes and appearance of the sims.
Another time it crashed when I tried to send a seem to a common lot.
I thought it was maybe overloaded.
(I have never managed to send a sim to a common lot on this computer.)
PROBLEM
What happens now is that the game starts, it loads the neighborhood (bellevue) but then instead of the view of the different houses to choose from I only see a black screen with the blue arrow cursor, which moves and actually turns into a star when on an active house. I click on it but it is still all black.
At this point I press start on the keyboard and go back to desktop, from there by clicking on the game icon on the application bar at the bottom of the screen I open the game again and I can see the neighborhood. I proceed then to load a family. The game loads it almost completely and toward the very end of the loading I get an irreversible error.
I should add the following:
I do not have any downloaded material
My games are all original
I regularly use the boolprop trick and have used it on this computer already.
I have never installed patches, just regular games.
Now after surfing the internet:
I have checked compatibility on all expansions and set it to Win XP service pack2. This helped once but not anymore.
I have tried uninstalling the last expansions and installing them back, again it worked once, and doesn't anymore.
Recently the game was working when I took away the saved games and let it create a new saving folder, but once I put back the saved games I get the same error at the exact same point. Also the black screen of the neighborhood happens all the time either way.
I will try all that has been suggested here up to now, but I have posted this anyway because my problem seems different from all I have read up to now.
I am thinking it may be something wrong with the saved games, but they still work perfectly on my old win 7 laptop...
Honestly I am at a loss, so if anyone has suggestions or explainations I would appreciate it very much, for it all does not seem to make much sense to me..
THANKS and I apologize for writing a 10 pages essay and also for my many English mistakes.
mileyhappy: 
