Got my hopes up for a sec when you said it was on Origin now...I guess you meant only for those who got it in the time window when they were providing it.

I wanted to try VM, but I read that it was far too slow to handle games. Moreover, VM doesn't actually recognise video cards, it emulates them. From what I've heard, it wouldn't work.

You could use XP as the main OS without much risk for malware if you never connect that computer to the net and were very careful with what you transfer to it in regards to files (doing malware scans before transferring files via usb, assuming you have another computer with a supported OS connected to the internet). Same when support ends for Win7.

I might never have heard of it if it weren't for my son. Have you heard of Humble Bundle? That's where I got my copy of "Banished" on sale for $5. Humble Bundle started out to support certain charities. They'd offer a bundle of games or ebooks and you pay whatever you want and decide how the distribution for the donation goes. Now they have a full-fledged store.


Hyperbole much?


Fan-boying is not going to help your case. And besides if a person did set up an XP machine for Sims 2 there is absolutely no reason they couldn't run it completely offline. I remember a point in time where computers weren't connected to the internet 24/7. In fact, I still don't like that they are so when I'm not using mine the internet access gets turned off.


Yeah, it helps to know what you're speaking of here. Yes, MS does collect certain data but what you're talking about is a back door that has been built into their operating system to allow government access on demand to anyone's computer. It wasn't originally in Windows 7 and was introduced in Windows 8 and 10. It's been since patched into Windows 7. Question for you: do you have any idea how much of your data Google is sucking up? Haha.

em, lets put some things in order, OK? These topics gets derailed sometimes so quickly...

1. Windows Outdated Edition (XP and older, Windows 7 in 2020)

2. Windows (or anything) in VM

3. Linux


4. Windows 10

I really lack the proficiency to deal with mass Stockholm Syndrome, sorry guys.

You do know not everyone has even CLOSE to the tech skills to do any of that, right?

I understand that @redandvidya may seem overly enthusiastic (and kinda evangelical, like 'ol good MacEvangelists) but honestly, there's nothing "nerdy" about it. Actually it may be even easier than fighting with Windows installations sometimes. How many posts like "My Sims does not work on my Windows X, heeeeeeelp!" we've had there? Probably because Windows is "so easy and without any problems whatsoever".
Lutris installs the game (and other games) practically without almost any user intervention (and POL needs the same level of competency than Windows itself), it was specifically built and tailored for users with a very little or even none knowledge - and that's a reason why I do not use it, because I prefer much more control over any installation process. The rest is just the same as in Windows (graphics rules if needed etc.).

So - "no nerd skill required" there.

EDIT:
I do not see the reason (except some very sentimental or highly hardware ones, like dealing with old scientific equipment, it happens) to keep the XP installation until you just find or get something like Thinkpad T400 and just love the machine so much (it's a fine piece of hardware) and wanna have that collection item in factory state.

Yes, I do know google sucks up my data, which is why I only use youtube and google drive nowadays and not of their other stuff, yes, I have ad tracking turned off on ALL of my social media, I use an open source password manager and two factor authentication to protect my accounts. Also, I deleted my Facebook because of how horrible it is, and I use an iPhone for better privacy. Next time you try and be condescending, do it RIGHT.



Actually, the entire reason that I don't recommend Win XP or Win 7 is because no one has tech skills to try and make a pure immaculate version of Windows that is A. virus free B. completely disconnected to the internet, which means you have to download cc on one pc and then transfer it physically to another. Also if you don't mind your data being stolen or your documents (including TS2!) may be deleted, sure, you can try Win 10 with TS2 (I've never had issues with Win10 and TS2) regardless though, I still don't recommend that because Windows 10 is just terrible in general.



That's weird, because for me at least, gaming performance in VMware player is getting really good , even able to play modern games like Tomb Raider, which are really heavy modern games. @ElaineNualla

Once your talking about Linux or a virtual machine you're about 10 levels of nerd above my head. It took me a year with help to learn how to unzip/unrar something. Some of us are older and maybe at a grandma level of tech ability.

^^ merged all my text into one post instead

That's fair. Then I think you'll probably be comfortable with Windows 10, (no offense) I don't think that people who are very technologically able have much to hide anyways, like what's microsoft gonna steal? pictures of your kids? just don't store like credit card or bank information and you'll be fine

well, it would need to be really "open for change and unexpected" kind of grandma to deal with that constant mess which the W10 is.

I'm pretty sure if most of these self-claimed noobies would have a real choice they'd never choose W10 maligna. The level of skill needed to keep these systems working (like: really working) is pretty high, and I really know what I'm talking about: I have the whole class filled with that infestation which I have to work each semester.
Most, these with money, would go straight for the Mac (the reasonable ones would stop to buy a working keyboard ofc), which is... what a surprise!, POSIX compliant system (BSD mutated by Apple). People stick with that mess "because it is just right there", seemingly "free" (most buyers does not count W10 OEM licence they pay with machine as a system cost).

@redandvidya this is interesting, though the hardware is highly above mine. I have not very impressive experience with old titles in VM (Dungeon Siege 1/2/3), which works perfectly fine in wine (they does not work in >W7 at all).

I think something needs to be said here.

Debates, even heated debates, are fine here, as long as they are civil. It's even basically OK that we're way off topic...as long it stays civil, and as long as the OP is fine with it and feels their question or topic is already answered and the thread-space is now free. (If that's not the case, OP, please do feel free to say so.)

Here's what's totally not civil and not OK: anyone directly attacking other posters by insulting the *way* in which the other expressed something. It's completely fine to disagree with anyone's viewpoint and explain yours and how it is different. It's not okay to say someone failed to "be condescending RIGHT" or to tell them to "screw off." That's demeaning someone else personally, and that's off-limits here.

It looked to me, @redandvidya , like Misty spoke sharply and challenged whether you *had all the information* to prove your point. There was/is zero insult (and zero condescension!) to you in that. The most you can say about it is...that it's the first half of a discussion.

In any discussion where you disagree with someone here, if you choose to respond, please put your energy into defending your facts or talking about your own experience. If your response includes any kind of assumptions or descriptions about the *other* person, it's pretty much guaranteed it's unwise---and more important, it's likely a violation of forum rules.

On a minor note: thanks to everyone making an effort to avoid double-posting.

Let's get back to grown-up discussion!

I am highly offended by all your implications that grandma's are old and are not able to be tech savvy.

As to anyone else who feels as though they need to throw insults around like it is confetti, think again. Please. Thank You.

Of course, if you just happen to have an old WinXP machine that has never been connected to the Internet and already has all the Sims 1/2 stuff on it you could possibly want, and works as well as such an old geezer possibly could, you're in pretty good shape. (In my case it's Sims 1, for which I collected gigs and gigs of custom content when it was still easy to find. I go back to it occasionally for nostalgia's sake and because making custom content is so very, very much easier.)

My current gaming machine is an all-purpose windows 7 model which probably could use a better graphics card. Have Sims2 on it and the only current issue is random graphics malfunctions (terrain goes black or yanks a .bmp out of whotheheck knows where). I keep tinkering with the graphics settings but haven't found the "sweet spot" yet (where the graphics are acceptable but the malfunctions don't happen). Still have to put up with Origin, but it's bailed me out twice so far when the game was verging on VBFVFS and a reinstall was necessary. (You better believe I keep backups!!!)

Edit: I think I finally found that "sweet spot". Keeping fingers crossed.

Edit 2: Updated the graphics card, which got rid of the weird terrain images. Terrain now looks terrific! Having Origin problems, but that's a different issue.

I'm actually 45 and do actually have some women I graduated with are grandmas already.

Now, now, Matt...I'm 55 (and a grandma six times over now), and I have a pretty good level of tech ability, I think. I'm nowhere near the ubernerd that my 37-year-old husband is (Yes, I robbed the cradle for my second marriage ), but I can hold my own.

In any case, with this whole "tech debate," I think the "problem" is that most Simmers, specifically, regardless of age, seem to be more on the level of "casual computer user" than "tech nerd." Most of the help threads here on MTS, for instance, seem to be started by people who admit that they're "not good with computers." Such people buy a prebuilt machine (which if it's not a Mac is going to have Windows on it, not Linux), they turn it on, they install the game, and for the most part the game works and they play it without issues, and that's the extent of it. Linux may be user-friendly for non-nerds, BUT most casual computer users are not going to be interested in switching out the operating system on a prebuilt computer they bought and that's working just fine, even if they likely have the ability to do so. Doing so will seem like a big deal to them, and if ain't broke, why fix it? I'm kind of that way, myself. (Although I am done with Windows, personally, but I also do not like Apple's business practices, so I will never buy anything made by them, either. So, when this Simming computer -- or any of my other ones, for that matter -- breaks in a way that wouldn't be cost- or time-effective to fix, I will probably build something myself for the next one, and I'll be looking into Linux at that point. I just don't feel a need to switch out things on this machine at this point in time.)

As for paranoia about data? Data leaks all over the place. If you use a smartphone on non-secured networks -- as most people do -- you are vulnerable. If you go shopping in an actual store that has a computerized Point-of-Sale system (which is pretty much every store, now; at the very least, they all have computerized credit card terminals, if they accept credit cards) and you use credit/debit cards, then that data is vulnerable because that store's POS system is probably not as secure as it could be. Etc. In the grand scheme of things, NO system is or ever can be completely safe. There are lots of things to be paranoid about, so take your pick and...I dunno, go live in an off-grid shack in the middle of a desert with an arsenal of weapons and a mattress stuffed full of cash while you hide from the black helicopters. Whatever makes you feel safe. Me, I take reasonable precautions -- VPN, good firewall, good antivirus, never use real credit cards online, only prepaid ones, don't do online banking in a nonsecure environment, etc. -- and I don't fret about the rest. The stress is not worth it to me. I don't worry about Win7 becoming unsupported because I have good network/internet security that I pay pretty dearly for. And plenty of people/companies still use machines with no-longer-supported OSs -- even XP -- without issue. I mean, when that ransomware hit a bunch of computers relatively recently, a big chunk of the "victims" were XP machines used by places like hospitals, where they are probably using very specific software for that industry that doesn't have a version for newer operating systems because maybe the company that made it went out of business. So...yeah. AND such ransomware hit machines that had still-supported OSs, too. Fixes are usually reactive, not proactive, after all. So...Yeah, if you're really paranoid about this stuff, nothing that anyone says is going to change your mind. But if your paranoia level isn't quite at conspiracy-theorist levels yet...Take reasonable precautions, don't do stupid things online, and you will likely be just fine, even if you use an unsupported version of Windows.

If it was a machine specifically for games without even being connected to the internet, I'm not sure where any sort of malicious things could get to it.

I am biologically old enough to be a great-grandmother but there are Sims players much older than I.

Now say a person buys a refurb Win7 computer like I've done a couple of times over the past years, a newly installed Windows 7 is a painful thing to get updated. We had to download a ton of huge files then install those, which with our slow internet took most of a day. I think installing a Linux distro is a lot less painful than that (although it still has to be downloaded) but the real agony will come when getting everything rolling again. And I think that's where at least some of us sit right now--we could do it but it's such a bother.


To my mind this is the key. And everyone has their own level of comfort.

Edit: Matt, nothing could get to it. Even downloading and transferring CC files will be safe. I've met a lot of people over the years paranoid about getting "viruses" in CC but the truth of the matter was they didn't know what they were talking about.

I could technically be a great-grandma even at my age, as my eldest grandkid (a boy) just turned 15 a couple of weeks ago and is past puberty, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. I hope not, anyway.



I can't speak for anyone else, but my current machine came already updated with the then-current Win7 updates. I think it was only missing a few months' worth of them, and...eh. And then I promptly turned off automatic updating and haven't updated it since, partly because at my house in rural Colorado we have very slow satellite internet, which is the best that can be had there. But this is also why I'm not worried about when Win7 goes unsupported because mine hasn't been "supported" for two years already, and it hasn't gotten so much as a PUP on it.

Now, when I bought this machine, I did actually think about switching out its operating system to Linux because I am curious about it, and the best time to do it would have been then, before I loaded all my own crap on it, but I decided against it for various reasons at the time. But, I figure that when this machine becomes unsalvageable (I'm betting its power supply will blow first and, since it has a proprietary one, it'll likely be difficult to find a replacement or, if I find one, I'll likely deem it prohibitively expensive for a machine I initially bought for $100), I'm figuring my only Windows options at that point, since businesses won't sell machines with unsupported OSs, will be 8 or newer and...do not want. So, my next Simming machine will be Linux, indeed, but I'm not going to bother switching out this one.

Wait... DO NOT... NOT (double negative) ...NOT...NOT... 4 negatives, that means i should? SO confused... X(


-gE
>=)

Yes, I think it means you should since double negatives cancel each other out and there are only four. If there were five NOTs then, well, maybe a person shouldn't.

@Misty_2004 @natboopsie

Tech is what I've dedicated my life and passion to, so for someone to come here, and effectively call me "stupid" does hurt. If I came off agressive, I'm sorry that you feel that way.

@HugeLunatic
I'm not trying to say that people who are old are not good at technology. I know plenty of old folks that are wonderful at tech, ranging from 46 to even 72. I only said that because they specifically stated that they have "grandma levels" @Mattgo74 for example. So I don't care if you're 20 or 62, if you state that you are not competent at computers and technology, I will treat you as such.

Also, the evidence that Windows XP sucks is right here

End of Security Updates: April 8, 2014.

The last security update for XP was 5 years ago. That's HUGE. If you use an XP machine as your primary computer, then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE upgrade your PC. People say I was being hyperbolic when I said XP might ruin your life, but I'm serious. I had a friend, who has a friend, who didn't upgrade to a safe version of Windows (i.e 7, 8, 10) and got all of their credit card info stolen because of a virus. This might happen to you, so if you're gonna use like XP or something, at least be careful.

No one's talking about having an XP machine as their primary machine, though. I floated an idea about having a dedicated machine for TS2 running XP. XP is the OS that TS2 was designed for, so the game would be in its element. The problems, though, would be:

1) Finding a copy of XP, which would likely not be an easy task, and if you found one, it'd probably be expensive because old Windows disks usually are. Installing/activating it might also be an issue.
2) Finding compatible hardware, in particular a GPU, that would also give you the level of performance you'd want.
3) Security, if you wanted the machine to be internet-capable, but a dedicated-to-TS2 machine wouldn't have to be (assuming that you have working disks, of course), particularly if you're willing to transfer files to and from an internet-capable machine via flash drives or whatever.

In the end, the cost/pain-in-the-assery would probably outweigh the benefits, but it's not an utterly terrible idea, overall.