Thansk for your reply.
I had bits of Sims on different drives and decided to delete everything including going into the registry to remove everything 'the hard way' and start again from scratch.
I have gone into Settings on Windows and changed my default drives on all file types to Drive D.
Following your suggestion I went into Origin itself and moved the location to Drive D. I created a new folder for the games to live in, but although the OriginThinSetup file saved in D:, it installed the program into Drive C and has so far installed the base Sims 4 game into Drive C.
This is no good, because the drive is not big enough to hold all the Sims packs. I have tried to speak to Origin helpdesk about this but they were unable to help as usual.
@PinkTweedy Did you also uninstall Origin "the hard way"? I had no trouble installing Origin onto D, and then it installed my games on D as well. Interestingly, it created a second folder on D named Program Files (x86), with a partial Sims 4 install inside, but I deleted that and it wasn't recreated. The game still runs fine.
So in your position, I'd look at the location on D where Sims 4 is supposed to be installed. If it's there, then delete the (probably duplicate) Sims 4 program files folder on C and try to run the game. If you don't have any Sims 4 program files on D, then uninstall Origin "the hard way":
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/origin/origin/manually-uninstalling-origin/
restart your computer, reinstall Origin on D, and reset the default install location to wherever you want it. Then start the Sims 4 download and see whether it is in fact being installed to that location.
How did you install Origin on D? I was able to install the set up file onto D but when I ran it, it installed on C automatically even though I have changed my computer settings to direct all download files to D.
At the moment it is still trying to download the EPs and all the rest, but every single one is failing to download and generating the Error code 327684:1. I am not sure if this is being caused by interference from my firewall or anti virus because I have uninstalled the trial antivirus that came with the computer and installed Norton which I am subscribed to. It has made no difference to the downloads, they are still failing.
Edit: I just saw your new post; try creating a new folder on D and directing Origin to install there. If that doesn't work, try the steps below.
@PinkTweedy Where a program is downloaded has no impact on where it gets installed, or at least it shouldn't. I have downloads still set to C, but when I went to install Origin, my system asked where I wanted it, and I chose D. This was a clean install of Windows though.
If you uninstall "the hard way" and reinstall, I would think you'd have the option to choose the install location. If not though, try uninstalling Origin with Revo Uninstaller (the free version works fine, either regular or portable). First, clear Origin's cache:
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/
Then use Revo to remove all traces of Origin, except for the Origin Games folder. Here's how:
Next, download and install Origin—the regular version, not the beta. Here's the direct download link:
http://download.dm.origin.com/origin/live/OriginSetup.exe
Be sure to run both the installer and Origin itself as an admin: right-click on each and select "Run as Administrator." Again, you should be asked where you want it installed, regardless of where the download is.
If you still don't have a choice of where to install it, do another clean uninstall, create a new admin user account on your PC, and install Origin into that, using the full installer and running it as an admin. You can delete the new user account when you're done; this is just to bypass any user-specific settings on your main account that might be getting in the way.
Thanks for all of that and I will come back to it if I need it.
At the moment my system is still busy downloading all the Sims EPs etc and even though each time it says 'Download failed' they are appearing in the list of games in the folder on D. So something is happening and I'm going to leave it to play out for now and hope for the best.
