How do I back up the sims 2?

[Ninja]

I bet this has been asked loads of times before, but I couldn't find any threads like this, and if there is I'm really sorry.

How do I back up? I only have the base game (on this comp) at the moment and am about to install more. I tried reading the read-me but most of it looked like this:
â»Ãá¡ÃÁ·ÕèÊ觼šÃзºµèÍ¡Ò÷ӧҹ¢Í§à´ÍЫÔÁÊì 2  ¢ÍãËé¨ÓäÇéÇèÒºÒÃìàÅ×è͹´éÒ¹¢éÒ§¨ÐäÁè»ÃÒ¡¯ãªéã¹ÇÔ¹â´ÇìâËÁ´ ¶éҤسÁÕ»ÑËÒà¡ÕèÂǡѺÀÒ¾¡ÃÒ¿¿Ô¤ ãËéµÃǨÊͺÇèÒà¤Ã×èͧ¢Í§¤Ø³à«µÊÕà»ç¹ 32 bit ËÃ×ÍÂѧ

And I can't read gobbledegook, as much as I would like to. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

 - Taylah

[miros1]

Well, it does worry me that the read me is garbled, but here's the skinny...

By hand (requires WinZip or WinRAR): Open up My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2. Right click the Neighborhoods folder.  Select "Compress" or whatever your package calls it.  After the process is finished, change the file name to something like "Neighborhoods 07-07-21.zip"

With SimPE (requires SimPE): Run SimPE.  Choose Tools->Neighborhood Browser.  There might be another level of menu in there, so look around.  Click each hood you want to back up.  Click Backup over on the right side of the dialog.