Follow up to my tech issue .... I decided after hours of trying to figure this out to just reinstall the game. At first I tried to use my saved games back up file ... but I hadn't backed those up since mid June, so it was peeps that had already passed .. so I lost a lot of my progress. I deleted all my backups, image backups and downloaded the free trial again from the LDW website. Since I had deleted everything connected to my old games, I started a new family. It seems to be working for now without getting the errors. Will the trial expire after a certain amount of time? I have been running it for almost 2 hours now and it hasn't. I have saved my key # to unlock the game .... will I need to use it or will this game not even expire? I hope that made sense!

Once you have installed and activated the game, the activation information is stored on your computer and you will not need to enter it again (even if you reinstall the game), as long as you download and install from the same site where you purchased it.

I'm glad it's working again. One thing you should be aware of about Windows Vista is that it has extra security features to prevent changes to installed programs. I have described one facet of those features in the "Special note for Windows Vista users" at the bottom of this post. That security feature may have played a role in the difficulties you were experiencing last night.

Oh good, I'm glad I don't have to reactivate it at any point.

Vista drives me batty. I'm always checking and deleting mod images from that virtual store file. When I do that, it deletes them out of my game ... even though I have saved them in the images folder.

OH NO! I installed some mods ... and now I'm getting the same stupid error!!! It won't run. I even deleted the images out of that virtual store. Can I just not install mods or what? This was working just fine for me until last night!

Ok, I just went in, deleted all images out of virtual store ... reinstalled my backup images and now the game starts. How can I get this to work with a mod? I'm def thinking the mods are what is causing this. What do you think?

I do believe that the changes you are making in the Program Files folder when you're installing mods are contributing to the problem. It is a very complex thing to explain what Vista is doing with Virtual Store (and why it's doing that), but let's just say that Vista doesn't like you messing with any files that are contained in the Program Files folder. Depending on how you're making the changes, and how often, I can very well imagine that Vista could determine that there is a security risk and shut down the game.

I run into the same issues quite often with my Vista, and the three steps I always take is disabling DEP for the game's .exe in the Program Files folder, running as administrator and finally using compatibility mode for XP SP2.

Right click the .exe and click on the compatibility tab. From there check Run this program in compatibility mode for Windows
XP SP2.

>_< I Hope it stops doing this for you. As LadyCFII mentioned, it probably notices the changes and defines it as a security risk.

Right now it's running well (knock on wood). Probably just jinxed myself with that comment! I have the DEP disabled and do run it as admin. I have not tried running it in compatibility mode though .. I saw those settings, but was afraid to mess with them. If I run into these problems again I will give that a try!

Thanks so much for your help and advice!

Happy 4th to everyone!

Happy 4th 1littleb! I hope everything works out for you I'm still excited to see your mods

Hi 1littleb!!

I have Vista and my game is doing the same thing. I tried everything like you did as per Xay and it is just getting worse. I have 6 families going and will be heartbroken!!! Did you get it to work?

Well you guys! DARN!!! Here I go to uninstall VF. Thanks for all of the info you guys! From now on the mods will be kept to a minimum. I LOVE VISTA! NOT!