To cheer me up and hopefully you too, a window that looks forward to Spring.

That is great praise, thank you :angel:

I wasn't sure if this was really a set, but there is more than one object so....it's a recolour of La Boheme Bed and Valance from Holy Simoly whence you need to obtain the meshes.
Floor cushion by OM at Avalon - mesh enclosed with permission
Bed Cushions by Mango Sims 2 - Mesh should be obtained from Bedroom Set Nestor.

To use your own mp3s, you need to copy the mp3 file to:
My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Music\[subfolder]\  

The subfolder will be either the type of music station or the buy or build mode.

You need to open the last expansion you installed - for example I would open Programmes>EA Games>The Sims 2 Bon Voyage>TSData etc.

It sounds as though your anti-virus software is renaming the files because it doesn't like the look of them.  To open them, you should be able to change the extension to 'zip' and open with Winzip.  Be sure they are safe before you do that and that they come from a reputable source.

When you have packaged your sims, you can open them with Sims2Pack Clean Installer and remove anything unwanted.  If you haven't got this programme, it's here

When I had this problem, it was caused by conflicting hacks.  I used Paladin's Hack Conflict Detection Utility which you can get here under Programmes.  I hope you solve this - it's very aggravating :smt106

There are a number of meshing tutorials around - have a look through this list and see if anything looks helpful to you

Thanks, KSK.  Much appreciated

I agree, very nice, thank you!

Very useful....and decorative....yes, very :angel:

You're welcome  I very much suggest backing up your neighborhood and reading the Simpe tutorials before you do much more with Simpe.

You can use Simpe.  Tools > Neighborhood Browser and open your Neighborhood.  Then Tools > Neighborhood > Sim Browser > Open your sim.  In the Plugin view, his name and surname will be shown.  Just change the surname, commit and save.  All done :angel:

You can get a trial version of Paint Shop Pro.  I use the non-free version and am very fond of it :toothy10: