[Kaylyn]

It's been my experience that whenever anything goes wrong, the first thing to do is shut off Norton. Usually it fixes the problem. :P I won't ever touch the program myself, but I do a lot of troubleshooting for others, and 99% of the time it's more of a nuisance than a help.

Edit: Oh, and about the patch stuff. To rehash what everyone's been saying, the first time you create custom clothing with the sewing machine, it doesn't create some new file like it *should*. It actually overwrites the objects.package file (I think). When you try to install patch, file size has changed, patch goes wonky. Sure, you can change the files to readonly, but when you create that custom outfit, it will disappear next time you load the game because the game was unable to save it properly. I'm hanging back, waiting on a fixed patch or critical rewrite or whatever Maxis comes up with before even making any custom clothes.