Solved Sims 2, Windows 10 and a Quad Core Hard Drive

Okay, switching it to Count:1 seems to have solved some issues. The loading between sims, and between live mode and buy/build mode only happens initially when I enter a lot, each time. It doesn't happen every single time now. It still seems to have to think too much about pop up windows/notifications and such, but it's not so bad, I guess.
The only other thing I have noticed is that using any clothes buying tool, the FFS Clothing tool, or the Home Store that comes with the Sims Manipulator, as well as just going to a community lot to buy clothes takes forever to load between pages of clothing. It's not only an initial load too, if i go back, it still takes up to 30 seconds to a minute to load a page.
Also, thumbnail regeneration in buy/build mode happens every time I enter a new lot. It's not just an initial generation and then it's okay. And individual items in the buy catalog, take a few seconds to load every time I click on them.
I hope all this makes sense the way i am explaining them. As a story teller, decorating sets and changing sims clothes, hair and accessories is super important and the way it is running now, that is not going to be easy to do. Any ideas?

@holleyberry

Unfortunately, I don't have any knowledge of any of those tools - I don't use them myself. Does Pescado or whoever has the Sim Manipulator tool - have anything to say about how they work?
at this point I'd say you might just have to bite the bullet and do some culling.

I wonder if I'd have the same issues with a Disk Installation. You said I'd need to run as Administrator to fix the update issue i was having trying to install the disks. Could you help me with that so i can see if there's a difference?

Actually to install from disks you have to follow this tutorial. The "grumpy loader" program is the key. I've done this myself and it worked brilliantly (after much frustration trying to do it different ways without that tutorial).

I have no idea if reinstalling would solve your issues, but if you do want to reinstall from disks that's the way to do it.

Personally I'd try running with no CC before going through a reinstall from disks. See if it still lags with, say, only the Clothing Tool and maybe a few custom clothes installed. If if runs ok that way it's probably the CC that's the problem, right?

I played my game last night with no CC and while it wasn't as bad, it still lagged in the instances I mentioned and got worse the longer I played.

So, I uninstalled the UC and am going to attempt the tutorial fanseelamb provided. Thanks for that. *fingers crossed*
Thanks for putting up with me and trying to help with this. I would really like for my game to work on this computer.

I use win7 - and win 7 has the same issue with the nightlife and uni eps - IF you install in order. I used my sims2 DVD, then installed apartment life, then installed the rest Maybe that will work on win10, but I would be trusting fansee more than me as she is using win10.

I, on the other hand, installed on Win7 following the traditional rule: everything in the order in which it was released. I have no issues at all. This game and its installation procedure are highly unpredictable. For some it works effortlessly, and for others it brings up one issue after the other.