Lyssaria, they are saved in a separate file, but they were not taken after a pause, so, according to Heather, the program will still update them to real time. Anyway, I will go ahead....I do have to open the games SOMETIME! LOL!

Yes, the copies I was talking about were the separate files, they are backups of the original which get updated around the same time as the original. Basically, if your family was in slot 1, the original is Virtual Families1.ldw and the copy would be Virtual Families21.ldw

Like I said, it'll calculate how long you were gone and update it according to that time Only way avoiding this is having your own folder with the files to keep backed up in case something goes wrong like this. I don't think your personal backup copy needs to be paused, you'd just lose the progress that was made since the time you made your own backup.

The personal backup copy does need to be paused, or else the game will adjust time passage just like the regular backups

Really? I guess that does make sense! I've only used the backups for short-term things.. this information really is crucial, thanks Xay

Now I know why the backups topic requires you to pause the game!

Good luck Reirecc. I have my fingers crossed for you.

My families are all OK!! What I did was open game #1, saw the parents waving their deathwave, paused the game, then did Alt-F4; replaced the new file with the old one....reopened game...parents were 50 years old and happy! I did this for each game and it worked. I am estatic!!!
Thanks to all who helped with advice as well as words of comfort....it is very appreciated.

YES!!!!! That is FANTASTIC news Reirecc! I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO happy for you and your little families!

I'm really glad for you Reirecc. It would have been so hard to lose all your little families.

Congrats Reirecc! When it comes to what happened technically I have no idea, but I'm so glad everything worked out for you!

I'm running Version 5, having done the incremental upgrades from Version 1. Strange things have happened in my games. The strangest was something that is NOT supposed to happen. In one family I had the parents have four children, get "old", and the wife died. The husband got a marraige proposal (surpise) which I accepted and when I checked the Family Tree I saw that he had disappeared, and was replaced with the new wife, who then appeared as the father/mother of the children! They now officially are the product of 2 moms!!!
I'll post the image in a follow-up email...got to figure out how to upload the image.