Sims 3 Won't Launch on New PC w/ Windows 11
Hello, I recently rebuilt my PC and was forced to switch to Windows 11 as that is all that was available to purchase. I’ve spent the last 3 hours going through Sims 3 fixes and every single one I’ve ...
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I just tried it out and I am still having the same issue unfortunately. ☹️
@NinjaAibou707 Did you get an Options.ini in the new Documents folder, and if so, did you tell Sims 3 to launch in windowed mode?
If that didn't help, or you had no Options.ini, please change the location of Documents back to the default C:\Users\username\Documents. I'm going to ask someone else if they have other ideas here, but it might take a couple days for a response. In the interim, you can play on the new account—it's simple to transfer content back and forth. I understand it's not your preferred solution, but at least it's a workaround you can use for now.
I unfortunately am still not seeing an Options.ini file in the new folder or after restoring the default location. And yeah that will be okay for right now until someone maybe has another idea-- thank you so much for all of your help and suggestions, I genuinely appreciate all of the effort you put in to help me.
@NinjaAibou707 I got that second opinion, and the only other suggestion the other person has is to try a repair install of Windows:
https://www.elevenforum.com/t/repair-install-windows-11-with-an-in-place-upgrade.418/
This shouldn't delete any of your data, but if you get to step 14 and are NOT asked to keep personal files and apps, back out and start over.
If this doesn't help, then the only good option I know of is to use the other Windows account to play Sims 3 going forward.
Hey there, so I am having the exact same issue with my sims 3. I open the launcher via the EA app and everything is fine with that, but as soon as I press play it doesn't open, but instead the EA app opens. I've tried pretty much every single method here to fix the issue, I tried cleaning out corrupt files using command promt and theres nothing else I can do beyond that point. I don't mind resetting my entire pc and removing all its contents to get a fresh start but now I've found I'm running into another issue with my brand new PC. Anytime I try and reset it, I get the following message: "There was a problem resetting your PC. No changes were made." I keep getting this error no matter which way I try and reset my PC, I've tried countless advanced methods to get it to reset but nothing is working. I have a feeling this is probably the root cause of why my sims 3 isn't playable in the first place.
- @puzzlezaddict I also tried to do this but I don't have the option to "Fix problems using Windows Update".
Okay so I got it to work, but I'm honestly not entirely sure what did the trick.
After reinstalling Windows 11, I was still getting the error that the game was already running. I then got another error saying something about a missing dll file and that reinstalling the game might help, so I did that but still got the already running error. This is the part where it gets confusing. A solution that I tried before was creating a PowerShell script to limit the Sims 3 to launch using only one core, and just in case I tried rerunning that program via PowerShell before launching the game. Another thing I did around the same time was realize that because I reinstalled the game, I needed to go back into Properties > Compatibility and click the box to run the program as administrator. I had this box ticked before I did the whole Windows repair and game reinstall, so I'm honestly not sure which one or if both did the trick, or if me reinstalling Windows 11 did something to make both of these things work better, but that's how I managed to fix my game. I will update in case I figure out exactly what might have worked, but for right now if you're having this issue I would recommend trying the PowerShell script and making sure you are launching the program as an administrator (and of course using the Alder Lake patch if you have a newer CPU). And maybe try a clean reinstall of Windows 11 in case that did something.
Here is the link the PowerShell script tutorial I used:
