In 2014 EA Games offered The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection for free download via Origin for a limited time of one week. Only people who grabbed the free download at right time can re-download the game at any time. Sadly, I missed the moment.
Some people uploaded Ultimate Collection on various file hosting services, where anyone can download for FREE: https://mega.nz/#F!tT5GkB5Y!8tEL-uoB7_aJG8Il9CREyQ
However, the Ultimate Collection, although contains the full game including all expansions and stuff packs, it do not contains expansion packs individually so they cannot be played with AnyGameStarter, used by me to create basegame-compatible content.
You may have been aware of BitTorrent filesharing network, where you can download games for free. But The Sims game is split on multiple torrents due to having numerous expansion packs, which require entering serial numbers which may take a while to find them and install all expansion packs, whole job taking about 3 hours.
I found one torrent which automatically install all expansion packs, you are no longer needed to install expansions one by one and enter serial numbers:
thepiratebay.org/torrent/6781386/Sims_2_-_All_In_One_-__all_expansions_and_updates_and_languages
If ThePirateBay is down, use www.teoalida.com/thesims/files/Sims-2-All-in-One.torrent
How to download torrents (if you are not familiar)
You need to install a torrent client, such as uTorrent or Vuze. Then go in the above link to ThePirateBay website, click Get this torrent, it will open with the torrent software you installed and start downloading. When the download is complete, open Sims 2 AIO Installer.exe and the whole game including all expansion packs will install in about 15 minutes. After this you can install AnyGameStarter if you want to play base game only or specific expansion packs. If you want to play via AnyGameStarter you need also to add cracked EXE files for the expansion packs you are playing, you can download The Sims 2 Crack Pack. The base game should not be cracked because it prevents Build mode from working, you need to play with disk in drive or in Daemon Tools.
You can browse ThePirateBay website for other games, software or music for free download.
If you download expansion packs one by one, they require a CD-KEY to be installed. Just search on Google, Bing or Yahoo “The Sims key”, “The Sims 2 Pets key” to find CD-keys shared by other people.
Is legal to download from torrents?
Simply using torrents is not a crime. But free downloading games and software that are usually sold for money, stealing serial codes or using cracked exe files, is a crime. However as long you are using them only at home, non-commercial use, is no problem.
For example: discotheques are regularly inspected if they own (paid for) the music they are playing, internet cafes are regularly inspected if they own (paid for) games offered for playing, but if you are downloading music and games from torrents just to play at home without making money from it, there is unlikely for a law enforcement authority to ever inspect you.
Your place of living also matter. Authorities in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America tolerate piracy more than in North America or Western Europe.
Disgusting we have to resort to illegal means to continue being able to play a game we paid for, isn’t it?
I highly recommend Games4theworld “The Sims 2 Origin Ultimate Collection” version:
https://www.games4theworld.club/t33221-the-sims-2-origin-ultimate-collection-out-now
To get to the magnet link from there, you’ll need: https://thebypasser.com/versions/version2.html
You will also need WinRAR. Do not, I reiterate DO NOT, try to use 7zip to extract this = problems.
Caveat: not a typical install. You drop the entire folder in Program Files (I do recommend following their instructions example, for the sake of simplicity; you CAN install elsewhere, as long as you know how to correctly amend the file path in a target field) and then initiate a ‘silent installer’ to handle the Registry side of things. And you cannot choose which EP/SP you get, it is all or nothing. That said, it does NOT require any keys (nor keygens), it’s quick (as fast as you can copy the folder over), relatively simple. And it is squeaky clean (no malicious junk, no DRM whatsoever) and fully functional on Windows 10.
It also works with the 4GB patch: https://www.games4theworld.club/t24221-must-read-overview-topic-for-the-sims-2
I also highly recommend that IF your system has more than 4GB RAM. If not, you shouldn’t use it (remember, Win Vista and later demand 2GB by itself. This can lead to problems if you don’t actually have more than 4GB RAM).
Oh, I also recommend grabbing the fixed store items from GoS (and the add-on sets):
https://gardenofshadows.org.uk/gardenofshadows/index.php?topic=33099.msg714046#msg714046
P.S. If you already have an extensive “Downloads” folder of TS2 CC… you may need to go through it all to shorten the overall file paths of your sub folders (because EA just *had* to put it as “The Sims™ 2 Ultimate Collection” instead of “The Sims 2″… and there is a ~250 character file path limit. Yep. SIGH).
Thanks for info, comment was put automatically under moderation due to amount of links and I had to approve it.
I don’t understand why do you say that need to resort illegal means to continue playing a game you paid for it. If you paid for it, you have installation CDs or virtual image of the CDs, and most importantly a CD-KEY which should be unique. The free download piracy websites are for kids with parents who refuse to buy games for kids and they have no means to obtain money so need to find a way to download for free.
I am aware that The Sims 2 makes a lot of problems on Windows 10: https://modthesims.info/t/printthread.php?t=614858e
I think they said it in a sense that people who did buy the original CDs or older virtual editions aren’t able to properly install them anymore, since EA ceased updating, supporting and distributing the game long ago. It happened to me, my CDs don’t work on Windows 10 and install a very buggy game on Windows 7. Even though I’ve paid for the game, I still had to download a corrected repack from a torrent plus a ton of corrections :/