i tried the self installing patch and it didnt finish-something about an older file with the same name-so i download the manual patch and it says on the site to install as per the instructions that come with the patch-theres no fricken instructions here...help?

This is the readme file from the Poser patch I d/l'ed from Larry Weinbergs' site...(http://www.ghosteffects.com) To install, you will need to manually copy each file to it's proper place within your Poser folder. !------------------------------------------------------------! !!! It is important to remove all of your current plugins in RuntimePlugins and make sure that they are located completely outside of the Poser folder (not in any folder underneath Poser) -- or are deleted. If you leave any around, you may wind up with two menu choices for the same import/export choice and one of them will be likely crash the application. !------------------------------------------------------------! To install, copy each file as noted. The files in the update are stored in folders whose names tell you what to do with them. 1) Remove all of your existing plugins in the "Runtimeplugins" folder underneath Poser (as noted above) 2) Backup (or delete) your old Poser4.0.exe executeable file if you wish. 3) Copy all files from the folder called "Put in Poser Folder" to your Poser folder. 4) Open the "Put in Runtime" folder included with this update. 5) In each of the folders located in "Put in Runtime" you will find files or more "Put in..." folders. Open each of these until you find a file that isn't named "Put in..." and copy it to the appropriately suggested folder under your Poser folder. Hopefully you will find them all. For instance, underneath "Put in Runtime" is a folder called "Put in Geometries". Inside that folder is a folder called "Put in maleCasLo". Inside that folder is a file called "maleCasLo.obj". You would then copy this file (maleCasLo.obj) and put it into the runtimegeometriesmaleCasLo folder under your Poser folder. Good luck -- and please don't find any more bugs.

So where does the new plug-ins folder go? What does that sentence mean? It has to be in the runtime folder doesnt it?

You don't necessarily move the entire new folder... all you have to do is copy (or drag 'n drop :-) the files from the patch folders to their appropriate Poser folders

Trust me on this one Delete the old plug-ins from the existing plug-in folder and copy the new plug-ins to the plugin folder. If you don't want to get rid of the existing plugins - do not leave them in any folder in the main Poser|Runtime directory. Move them to a seperate folder totally away from the main Poser installation or, better yet, onto a different drive. Otherwise, much unhappiness when attempting to export meshes will ensue Paul

I had exactly the same problem a few weeks ago and in frustration I uninstalled poser4 and then reinstalled it and then ran the auto version of the patch. Everything worked. It found the old file it was looking for. The main thing is that I didn't lose any of the props or stuff I had previously loaded when I did the re-install. -Ken