Whenever I launch the game the screen is so small you can't see it. The bottom part of the screen is cut off. You get to the screen where it says let's start a family and you're stuck. There's nothing to click on and no way to get out of that screen except to x out of the game entirely. It's not playable at all.

Our games operate at a fixed resolution: 800x600 for all games except Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers and Virtual Families 2: Our Dream House, which are 1024x768. Your computer's display must be physically capable of supporting that resolution, and the settings for the display must be set to at least that size, or the games will either not display properly or will not run. Many netbooks, for example, have screens that are physically too small to display our games.

To check the display resolution settings, please have your parents help you perform the following steps:

Right-click on your Windows desktop and select Screen Resolution. If the resolution shown in the dropdown box is smaller than 800 x 600, you should select a higher resolution. If none of the available resolution settings are large enough for the game to run, please read on for an alternate solution

An alternate solution is to force the game into full screen mode.

Virtual Families 2: Our Dream House doesn't include a configuration file that would allow you to change the game's display mode. However, you can copy the config file (ldw.ini) from one of our other games, and it will work fine.

If you don't have any of our other games, you can create one using the following procedure:

1. Open NotePad on your Windows computer, then copy the following lines and paste them into the document:

[ldw]
Fullscreen=1
ForceFullscreen=1
ForceWindowed=0
UseVsync=0
Distributor=LDW

2. Select File/Save As and choose the Virtual Families 2 folder in Program Files as the location, using the file name ldw.ini

3. Open the Virtual Families 2 folder in Program Files to make sure that the file is there. If it isn't, let me know and I can provide the file to you.

4. Run the game again, and it should open in the correct mode.

My laptop runs VV5 New Believers with no problems.
VF2 doesn't work properly. Same computer.
Same resolution. Same 17 inch screen.

The problem is not my lap top. And I have no other computer.

The resolution on my laptop is set. It doesn't change.
It's set for the screen size. The resolution is set at 1280 x 720. VV5 New Believers runs great on this laptop and resolution setting.

It sounds like your game is still in windowed mode, rather than full screen mode. Is it possible that's the case?

I will do some testing on a Windows system that is set to the same resolution as yours to see if I can reproduce what you're seeing. In the meantime, please check Heather's reply to your support ticket for her response.

It may be in windowed mode. It isn't full screen. But I can't even get to the adoption page. So I can't start the game.

I tried to create the folder but it wouldn't let me save anything to the VF2 folder. It said I don't have permission to save anything to that folder.

It might help if you try the procedure I wrote in this post, which doesn't require that special file.

I can't change the resolution. There is no option to do so.
My task bar is already on the side. It's not at the bottom.

Have you also tried the alternate solution regarding LDW.ini that Xay gives in this post (a few posts above this one)?

Yes, I did. I get the message that I don't have permission to do that. Which is odd because I'm the admin on this computer. No one uses it but me.

But I'm not giving up. I will get this game to work.
I just don't know how.

There shouldn't be any issues with permissions unless the file was in use elsewhere. Use the Task Manager to make sure that VF2 is shut down then try to edit the file again.