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The way to check that you actually have some neighbourhoods there is to look in the game files.
For Sims 1, that will be [Install location]\Maxis\The Sims. If you didn't change the default path, then the install location will be C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86). The folders for the neighbourhoods are named Userdata, Userdata2, Userdata3 and so on.
Sims 1 is a little different from Sims 2, 3 and 4 in that it was written when there was no real concept of multiple users. Therefore the userdata and save files for a game were usually in the installation location. That was just fine and dandy for operating systems like Windows 98 but for Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10 there is a little thing called UAC which makes it difficult for programs to write userdata to the 'Program Files' and 'Program Files(x86)' folders.
So, if your neighbourhood folders are present but the game still will not read them, your best bet is to uninstall the Sims 1 and expansions completely, and to reinstall them into a non-UAC location. I made a folder on my hard drive specifically for my Sims games, so I installed Sims 1 to C:\Games\Maxis\The Sims. It works fine on my Win7 machine, as well as my Win 10 laptop.
Note- if you do reinstall, also be sure to empty your virtual store- delete C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims (adjust this path to match the one where you had it installed to).