Can anybody tell me whether it is possible (and easy) to maintain a working copy of Poser 4 on your computer (I'm on a Mac) after upgrading to 5? I like both P4 and P5 for different reasons, and in the event that I have problems with P5 on my Mac, I want to retain access to everything I've done in P4. I would keep all my models and props in the P4 directory, and build everything afresh in P5. Is this doable?

I don't know about a Mac, sorry, but I have kept Poser 4 on my PC and it works very well. I can't open both Poser 4 and Poser 5 at the same time, but Poser 5 easily accesses the Poser 4 files. I haven't had any problems having both.

Yes it is very possible. Poser 4 installs into a Metacreations directory, while poser 5 installs into a Curious Labs Directory. So there should be no reason as to why you couldnt use both. I am currently able to use both with no problem. I too like P4 and P5 for different reasons, and that is why I use both. When you install an item from Daz, it scans to where you want your model installed and it lets you choose Poser 4 or Poser 5 as well. So it does work perfectly. I like poser 4 for its simplicity compared to Poser 5.

You can also set up a dummy folder with a copy of just the poser.exe file and then Daz will copy to it, if you don't want everything in the Poser 4 or 5 main folders. I love the access to multiple folders that Poser 5 allows. Still, some items (like Vicky 3) work better if they start out in Poser 4.

Shouldn't be a problem with a dual-boot Mac. Might be tricky with newer Macs that are OS9-crippled.

No problem on a PC, it's annoying that when I double click on an .pz3 it opens it in 5 rather than 4, but I'm living in the vain hope they'll fix 5, otherwise I'll remove it :) later jb

It works fine on my Mac. I always run Poser 4 in Classic mode under OSX, and I can have both P4 and P5 running at the same time, but I haven't tried making any complicated scenes then. As you probably know you can add the P4 Runtime to Poser 5, but be warned: if the runtime is big, P5 takes forever to start.

Well I have both 4 and 5 on my machine... also you don't need to duplicate your runtime. Surprise! Poser 5 lets you link to your existing runtime. The only problem so far is that injection technology needs to be in the 'native' runtime. So you'd have to install V3 to your Poser 5 as well, but thats about it.

Normally I wouldn't disagree with you, Lyrra, but I haven't noticed that was true (about the injection technology needs to be in native runtime). I admit I avoid using Vicky 3 as much as possible, but I'm sure I've injected her in Poser 4 and used her in Poser 5. Is that in the readme? Did I just imagine it worked? (That's possible, I admit...my eyes are not what they used to be and they were never that good.)

sorry I think I miswrote slightly If you have v3 and her files in the Poser 4 runtime, and try to inject her in poser 5 it takes a looooooooong time. Or at least thats what I've heard from many many posts here. Never had the issue myself, since I work with a saved pre-loaded character only

Oh, yes, that's true. Injecting Vicky 3 in Poser 5 is a lost cause for me. I always start her in Poser 4 and take the finished character into Poser 5. Thank you for the clarification.

BUT if you have her installed in Poser 5, and inject using Poser 5's libraries then everything is just fine. Thats what I originally meant by the 'native' runtime.