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Re: Newly installed The Sims 3 game won't open, no error code given by EA

@piperofpeace First of all, you can kill Sims 3 or the launcher, the EA App, and the EABackgroundService in the Task Manager if necessary. Or you can restart your computer, which will close all running processes.

Windows is telling you that there's a problem with a .NET Framework (and yes, the error is very helpful, thanks for posting it). Sims 3 uses .NET 3.5, so it's worth uninstalling and reinstalling that runtime. But this error shouldn't happen under normal circumstances, so first, please run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files. Here's how:

Hit Windows key-X
Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Checkhealth” without quotes, and enter
When it's finished, post the message you see
Hit Windows key-X again and choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”
Inside the window, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes, and enter
The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
Otherwise, after it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again and choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Windows Terminal (Administrator)”
Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes, and enter
Post the message you receive here

Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates. If any install, restart again afterwards.

Next, hit Windows key-R, enter "appwiz.cpl" without quotes, and click "Turn Windows features on or off." .NET Framework 3.5 will be near the top of the list. If the box next to it is filled in, click it to uninstall, then restart your computer. Repeat the process, except click the now-empty box to reinstall .NET 3.5, let the install process finish, and restart again. If the box is empty to begin with, click it and restart.

Please also manually install DirectX 9, again, and restart afterwards. Then try to launch Sims 3 and let me know how it goes.

2 Replies

piperofpeace
2 years ago
Just the same error as before occurs again. Screenshots 19 and 20 are the PowerShell results you asked for.
I thought I'd also attach a screenshot of the appwiz.cpl (Screenshot 22). The first time I tried I only ticked the upper folder and I thought it didn't help because the 2 lower folders weren't selected. But checking them as well on the second try didn't change anything, unfortunately. ☹️
In the screenshot you can also see the newer .NET version I've got on my laptop and which bits of it are checked - maybe this could help.
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
2 years ago
@piperofpeace Sims 3 doesn't use .NET Framework 4.x, so in theory, none of those components should matter. You can check them anyway if you want; if it doesn't help, you can uncheck the boxes again. This won't do any harm.

One other simple step to try is reinstalling the VC++ 2005 x86 runtime, which Sims 3 uses. The errors in your dxdiag aren't typically associated with that—they've been almost exclusively related to the DX9 error—but the runtimes do all need to work together. Hit Windows key-i, select Apps, scroll down to the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables, click on the 2005 version (it won't say x86, but that's what it is), and uninstall it. You can download a fresh copy from Microsoft:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26347

You only need the x86 version, not the other two. Install it, restart your computer, and try again to play.

If that doesn't help, what might be useful here is a repair install of Windows. Reinstalling .NET 3.5 and DirectX 9 should have fixed this issue, and the fact that they didn't makes the repair install the logical next step. Here's how to run one:

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/repair-install-windows-11-with-an-in-place-upgrade.418/

This shouldn't delete any data, but if you get to step 14 and are NOT asked to keep personal files and apps, back out and start over.

Once the repair install is complete, please run the DX9 installer (yet again), just to be thorough. Make sure you're actually installing the runtime—the first step is just extracting it, and a few players have thought that was sufficient and never finished the install process. If you want to double-check your work, compare what you've done to these instructions I posted earlier:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-3-launcher-won-t-open/m-p/10711778#M247861