I, myself, am not hyped up about this one. I was one of the few who actually got to experience the Securom meltdown on my computer. When Sims2 came out, I was so excited. I reserved my copy a couple of months in advance at Best Buy. I watched every trailer. I jumped for joy and raced to pick it up when it got to the store. I bought the expansion packs as soon as they came out, up until Freetime.

Then the proverbial crap and fan. Computer crashes, DVD burner frying, CD-DVD programs being altered. I get it checked and, that was when I first learned of Securom. I always overlooked the bugs, I knew there would be a fix, but the whole malware thing proved too much for me. I will buy Sims 3 when it comes out as a whole set 5 years from now; probably about the time they are releasing Sims 4. The bugs should be gone by then, and I will only have to remove one version of whatever nasty anti-customer software they put on it.

Try it exactly like this;

changeLotZoning hotel

If you want to zone for other types of buildings switch hotel with;
  dorm
  residential
  community
  apartmentbase

Sims2 cheats only work for me with the correct capitalization. It doesn't seem to be an issue for my husband's computer though. Go fig.

I am not the smartest person in the world and I could be completely off of the mark here, but here goes it for me at the risk of making an ass of myself.

One of the many problems my poor computer had with securom was in its start-up (Doesn't that have to do with BIOS?). Securom was initializing at start-up and trying to do, well I don't know, something. I first learned of Securom by opening my Task Manager and looking up the different processes online. Then I was directed to my registry and found this program I had never installed on my computer. I did virus sweeps and found nothing, I tried to delete it and couldn't. In the meantime I kept having more and more problems. I found removal software and got rid of it. Everything seemed great after that. Then I put in my Sims game again. Problems returned 10fold. I looked in my registry and Securom was back. My DVD burner quit burning and my resources went down the tube. I removed it, but much of the damage still remained. Securom had altered my CD/DVD software, and some of my Media Center files. I did a full system restore and everything was normal. When I went through and installed my games again I ended up with many of the same problems. I have games other than the Sims that have Securom in them, and I believe the hardcore problems I have stem from conflicts within the different versions of Securom between them.

You see, I am one of those people who go and buy games the day they come out, and install them as soon as I get home from the store. That means that I was also installing the upgrades of Securom in their respective order, too. When I reinstalled my games, I didn't reinstall them in the order I bought them, so I was probably upgrading and downgrading the Securom programs with each overwrite it did of itself, in essence causing massive corruption to said Securom.

Then Securom got pissed at me and my machine and FUBARed it.

All of this is just theory of someone trying to educate myself. Please don't hate me. I am very sorry if I am just being annoying to you; It is not on purpose.

I don't think it is a coincidence. I believe part of your problem has to do with Securom. I have had some issues with Securom on my computer recently. It has messed up my DVD-Rom and corrupted my hard drive. I have just recently started learning about the program that EA sneaks into their games; and other companies that I buy games from do, too. The several games that I have on my computer with Securom have been a computer cancer for my system. You may want to educate yourself, and you may not think this is your problem, but here are a couple of sites dedicated to Securom issues, if you would like to check it out.

http://reclaimyourgame.com/

http://securom.mustbedestroyed.org/phorum/index.php