With hardware and software moving so far ahead since, it’s natural that the game now has some compatibility issues. Even Windows XP wasn’t around when it launched. The Sims was released in 2000 and was compatible with Windows 95, 98 and ME machines.
And that has included going back to where it all started! With The Sims recently celebrating its 21st anniversary at the time of originally writing this tutorial, I have been in a nostalgic mood and re-discovering older Sims titles. Refer to the Troubleshooting section for instructions under “Windows 11 Fix / Game Not Launching”. This fix may also work if you can’t get the game to launch on older operating systems, or you don’t have the Complete Collection so therefore can’t apply the optional patch.
I have found a fix for Windows 11 which resolves a problem where the game would not launch following a recent update.
