I had the abandonware version installed on my computer for years. I had to wipe the machine to update to Windows 11 last month and installed the Ultimate Collection that reappeared in my games library on the EA app.

Today our internet provider was working on the lines. While we were without internet, I decided to play Sims 2.

Nope. My reward for installing the “legitimate” version of the game is it not running when the EA app can’t connect to the internet. When our connection was restored, I signed into the EA app and clicked the “offline” option. Supposedly that allows you to play offline. Except that when I tried to run the game, it took me back to a screen saying I had to be online to open the game.

Is there a way around this? I am so angry at the moment that I’m tempted to dig my thumb drive with the other version out of the drawer and start over. I had all the discs at one time, but someone nagged me into declutterring and I figured I didn’t need them with the Ultimate download. Why should I need their permission when I paid for the game decades ago?

Just install a crack and then you don't have to play through any app.

Thank you. This worked. I was just too stinking mad to think of it. Now I'm off to research if the no cd patch for Sims 1 works for the Legacy version,

I don't think you can use a Sims1 crack with Sims2, but there are enough Sims2 versions around.

They're probably talking about the version of Sims 1 that came with the Legacy Collection, not Sims 2.

Yes. I was able to find a no cd crack for Sims 2 easily and that solved the problem.

I ended up paying for Sims 1 again, however, and I would like to fix it so it doesn’t rely on the EA app because that annoys me on general principles. But that’s a problem for another day