Fercho - what InfiniteDreams recommends works for about 50% of people. there are known problems with all of the EPs and Stuff Packs and custom content. These problems do not affect all players, but the one they do affect have nothing but problems.
In my own experience, I have managed to get custom content to work by doing the following:
- Run the game once, disabling custom content
- Delete all .cache files from \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2
- Delete all .package piles from \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Thumbnails
- Move the contents of the Downloads folder to a secure location such as the Desktop or C:\z\
- Run the game one time, enabling custom content
- Connect to the Exchange by using the big * in the User Control Panel
- Download one item and let it install
- Exit the game
- Restore the Downloads to the Downloads folder
- Run the game one final time to check to see if things are working as they should be
If this fails, try applying the patch from:
http://thesims2.ea.com/update/Make sure to get the
CD patch unless you downloaded the Pets EP from the EA online store. For some people the patch causes new and worse problems because of driver incompatabilities.
If this continues to be a problem, you may have to uninstall everything and re-install a number of times until everything works. Unfortunately for some people the only choice is Custom Content
or EPs/SPs, Maxis/EA does not really offer any solution for this bug.