Vista - The Sims2 neighbourhood crashes

Hi, I'm new to the forums and have a problem with The Sims 2 and windows vista.
I'm using vista home premium 32bit operating system and seem to have all the required disk space and everything, I don't seem to have any problems with the graphics or anything like I thought I would, so I assume I have an appropriate graphics card (as well as sound).
Initially, the game loads without any problems, the only thing being a window popping up informing me of compatibility issues, which then prompted me to search for solutions and download a patch for the game (which I did).
After that everything runs as normal and very quickly, the graphics are fine. The problem comes when I'm in neighbourhood view and I click on a family to play, the loading screen performs as normal, as does the sound, until it gets to the point where it has supposedly stopped loading - the music continues but everything else freezes up with the loading screen still showing as completed. It's as if it just never loads? The only way I can get out of it is Alt+Ctrl+Del where I end the process in the task manager.
I searched the forums and couldn't find a similar problem to mine, I apologise if this problem has already been answered. Any help please?? Thank you.

Though you don't have the problems posted here The Sims 2, still confused?, look through it, maybe somthing will jump out at you. I would also advise you to vist the sims2 forums as to see if anyone there has an answer for you.

Let us know.

PS here's another site that might interest you - The Siims 2 for Wiindows Viista? - Neoseeker Forums

Are you running any expansions? I'm running up to Open For Business, with the latest OFB patch, and have had no issues. I haven't downloaded any new content for a few years now..

Do you have custom content?

If so, disable all of it and see if the game loads - I had that problem when I had an object in a house the game didn't like. You cannot load any house in any neighborhood? If others load, you've got your answer.

One link posted by sygnus mentions -nosound ... Another thing to try is to run the game is in windowed mode: add -w to the end of your shortcut's target.

A last resort would be a reinstall, patching only the last expansion you have installed. ..at least, that's how I did it, and I'm running my old neighborhood without issue.