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You should be able to just go into My Documents - EA Games - The Sims 2 and make a Downloads folder. Let's say for now that that worked. Make sure you are registered and logged in at http://www.modethesims2.com/ (I'm just using this as an example because you mentioned it). For example, go to Downloads Home, Miscellaneous. Find something simple to download, like an object that you easily find in the game to make sure it worked. Try to avoid things that have anything about 'testers' in the description because they could be glitchy and mess up your game. For example I'm going to select the Shrimp & Calamari dinner. Go all the way down to the bottom, to the file name. It will tell you which packs that this item is compatible with, so make sure that that's accurate for you, then if it is, click the file name. Save the file to your Downloads folder that you just created. When it's done downloading, open your Downloads folder, find your file (mine was a the bottom, should be a zip file - if you have winrar or winzip, it should look like a stack of books). Right-click, select 'Extract Here'. After it extracts - I would find it just to be sure - you can go ahead and delete the winrar/winzip file (the stack of books icon). This SHOULD put the item(s) into your game. Before doing a lot, I would run the game to make sure it worked. You don't want to spend hours extracting stuff only to find out it didn't work!

http://www.thesims2.ea.com/ - under the Community tab, go to Forum (BBS), this is a great place to get answers to your questions. Lots of fellow 'simmers' and experts there. You don't need to register to read it, but you do need to register to post. Good luck!

Watermelon is ideal.its in My archives/Username/EA video games/The Sims 2/Downloads folder i'm utilising Vista.all my makeup and garments is going into Savedsims folder.make one in case you do not have it. oh i forgot..you could't make subfolder in Savedsims folder.