My daughter has previously completed this game on a lower spec now cannabalised machine.
She Is now wanting to play again but on loading and installing the patch It will not get past the first picture on the screen.

I have searched as we had similar problems with the sims that only like a nice clean install of xp.

It wont even run on my main machine.

her spec is xp home sp1 athlon 2000 40gig hd abit KD7-E 512 ddr
geforce4 ti4200

But she used Kazaar a lot and I am always removing viruses and spyware.

We have tried lowering settings and closing down background stuff but are now stumpped.

any ideas

I had a similar problem with the Sims as well, in my case, removing AC3 was the cure, although EA support tried to have me believe a fresh install was the only way I could fix it.

Is that AC3 flash plug in

Sorry to be stupid but please enlighten me
Thanks
Peter

AC3 sound. I don't remember exactly how to do it, I do remember you have to unregister the dlls and then remove the files or rename the extensions. Try doing a google search or maybe someone else knows how to do it.
Personally, I found it to be a pain to remove AC3 when someone wanted to play Sims, then have to put it back to get my sound settings back like I had them.