This tutorial shows you how you can put a created back-up back into the game. When you restore a back-up, you can play it again in The Sims. However, there is a chance that it gets deleted when you uninstall The Sims. Also, you are not able to password-protect these neighborhoods. Follow the steps below and you'll know how to restore back-ups in no time.

Note that this tutorial uses quite many images. Please be patient while your browser is loading these images if you've viewing this online.

Step 1: Opening the Restore screen

The first we have to do, is selecting the "Restore from..." option on the main screen. That screen opens up right after you launch The Neighborhood Handler.

Now we've selected the function, we want to select the back-up which we want to put back in the game. In this case, it's already selected as we want to restore back-up number 1:

Note that the selected back-up must exist. The last part of this step is clicking the big "Continue..." button at the bottom:

Step 2: The Restore a Back-up screen

The "Restore a Back-up" screen will pop up on your screen. First of all, we want to select what neighborhood to restore the back-up to. If you don't have an expansion pack installed, then you can skip this bit as there is no support for multiple neighborhoods in that case.

Now you can have a look at the details of the back-up and neighborhood for ages, but then nothing will happen. So to make a progress, let's click the "Continue" button:

Step 3: Overwriting

Because a neighborhood already exists on the slot we selected, the program asks if it should be overwritten. There isn't much to do but confirming that we want to overwrite the neighborhood by clicking the "Yes" button. Note that once a neighborhood has been overwritten, it will be unrecoverable. It will NOT be in your Windows recycle bin! Be careful when overwriting a neighborhood. If the neighborhood slot is not occupied, then this step will automatically be skipped. Skip to step 4 in that case.

Step 4: Waiting

Once we finished the previous step, it will start copying the files. Wait a while for this to finish.

Step 5: Activate?

This step will be skipped in the case you don't have an expansion pack installed. Continue to step 6 in that case. Otherwise, you will be asked whether you want to activate the neighborhood to which we restored the back-up. This means that neighborhood will be loaded when you start The Sims. Click "Yes" or "No", it's your choice:

Step 6: Done

The activating will be done in a flash. You'll be back to the main screen in a split-second. As you can see, the neighborhood has been updated. That's all!

This screenshot has been modified and shows a different date/time than normal, hence it may seem un-updated. That is not true, it will actually show updated dates and times.

Extra Notes

This tutorial does not involve a password protected back-up. If the back-up has been protected, you will be asked for the password after step 2 and before step 3.

If you want to change the details of the neighborhood after it's been restored again, use the "Change details of..." option on the neighborhood.