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fat-furtato's avatar
fat-furtato
4 years ago

Sims 3 won't launch with Window 10

I used to be able to play Sims 3 on my old PC computer a couple of years ago (bought in 2014). Recently I want to open Sims 3 to play again on the same computer with Window 10 by now. But it crashes right away: When I clicked "play", the Origin window disappear for about one second, then it came back on, nothing happen. The Sims 3 game won't launch. Then I switched to another computer with Window 10, the same thing happened. Simply for playing Sims 3, I just bought a Lenovo Legion 5 gaming laptop yesterday with nothing else on it, I installed Origin and Sims 3. The exact same thing happened again. This problem only relates to Sims 3. I can play Sims 4 with no problem. I call EA support 4 times, sent them msinfo and Dxdiag files twice, see below. They even have specialist to help and still can not solve this problem. I have also tried everything under the sun, nothing helps. Now they asked me to post this problem here to see if someone else can help or if someone else encounter the same problem. Since I tried this and got the same problem on 3 different PC computers, I really think it might be the problem with Origin or EA? By the way, I can play the same Sims 3 in Apple Book Air, so this is only related to PC. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

pc
technical issues

4 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    4 years ago

    @fat-furtato  According to your msinfo, Origin's update tool is throwing errors, so it's worth doing a clean uninstall and reinstall of Origin:

    • Quit Origin, then right-click on the Task Bar and open the Task Manager.  Scroll through looking for Origin entries.  If you find any, click on them and End Task.
    • Clear Origin's cache.
    • Download Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine) from here.
    • Launch Revo, select Origin from the list, and click Uninstall.
    • When it finishes uninstalling, select "Moderate" under "scanning modes," and click Scan.
    • If Revo finds any remaining registry entries, select all, delete, and click Next.
    • Revo will display "Remaining Data and Folders."  Select all of them except for the "Origin Games" folder, if it appears.  (This is where Sims 4 and other Origin games are installed by default.)  Delete the rest.
    • Close Revo, and restart your computer.

    Next, download the full Origin installer and run it.  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."

    However, the issue you've described is exactly what happens when the Sims 3 base game product key is blocked or deactivated.  Origin doesn't find a valid key and won't open the game.  This most often happens when two accounts get merged: the base game key isn't transferred properly, but it can have other causes as well.

    The only way to find out whether this happened to you is to go back to support and specifically ask about the status of your base game key, not only whether it's present but whether it's active and valid.  If it's not, a support rep should be able to fix the issue for you.

    https://help.ea.com/en/contact-us/

    By the way, there's enough information contained in an msinfo report that you probably don't want it posted in a public forum.  So it's best to edit your post to remove the file.  A dxdiag is fine though.

  • fat-furtato's avatar
    fat-furtato
    4 years ago

    Thank you very much! I will try your suggestions right after lunch. I did have two account merge issue so you might be right on this. And also thanks for your reminder about posting msinfo report on public domain. I thought I just bought this gaming laptop with absolutely nothing on it besides Origin and Sims 3. Is this still a problem? I am not good at computer at all so any advice will be greatly appreciated. 

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    4 years ago

    @fat-furtato  If you're asking whether posting the msinfo is still potentially an issue, it's more that sharing the information in it could make your system vulnerable, not that the info is too personal all by itself.  It's definitely a good laptop for Sims 3 by the way, capable of running the game on ultra graphics settings without any trouble.

  • fat-furtato's avatar
    fat-furtato
    4 years ago

    Again thank you for your help. Finally I was able to solve my problem through patiently calling EA support. I probably talked to 5 representatives. First 4 gave not much help. Then I got lucky to finally reach someone in Texas who is just fantastic and super smart. He was able to solve my problem through a series of comprehensive operations. He said my problem is most likely related to antivirus software McAfee. In addition, I have to update graphics driver and do a few other things. They also reset the product key. Anyway, problem solved. 

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