Is it just me or is anyone else having problems with the DAZ Freak Morphs updater for Mac? It keeps freezing my computer while it is looking for the partition where Poser is located and even force-quit doesn't prevent from freezing.

I think they have done something with their VISE installers, so now they only work in OS 9.2.2 and nothing earlier. I think installers are a very bad idea (they add to the cost and time required to distribute an item, and they invariably cause problems for people), but Daz is stuck on them for some Machiavellian reason. Daz could save alot of $$ and man-hours if they did it like everybody else and used zip files which expand to Runtimes in the place of our choice. Their use of installers makes them look like they're stuck in the 80s.

The biggest problem for a computer sits often in front of the monitor. This time I was patient and didn't quit the installer after a minute or two of idle time, gave it a lot of time just to see what happens - and it finally found the required file. Guess I need to clean out my Runtime next spring, there's simply too much junk in there.

Don't feel bad I have a PC and I have downloaded it three time none of them have worked

So I'm not the only one displeased by those installers. Okay, charitably, the installer is there for Mac users that haven't learned to hand-install (then why do they distribute the PC files in exe....what was wrong with unzipping to directory?) But I'd like to have a real good reason before I turn over the keys to my hard drive to anyone. The fact that almost every other Poser-related distro is in an ordinary zip, and that us Macs have been happily installing same for years, causes me to view DAZ's use of an installer program as laziness compounded with arrogance. Which about sums up their site design, too.

?! I love the Daz installers. I like the time they save.

I think they have done something with their VISE installers, so now they only work in OS 9.2.2 and nothing earlier.

Interesting. Since I no longer use 9.2.2 or anything earlier, I wouldn't have noticed. What I have noticed recently is that recent DAZ installers are Carbon instead of Classic, and can run with just Mac OS X. Your older 9.x probably lacks the latest Carbon extension. > Daz could save alot of $$ and man-hours if they did it like everybody else and used zip files which expand to Runtimes in the place of our choice. Their use of installers makes them look like they're stuck in the 80s.

The installers are a nice convenience; we don't need to use MacConverter on DAZ files. Which is nice, if not essential. Now, with Poser 5, it no longer matters -- they could ship the raw crossplatform Poser 5 files and png previews, and both Mac and PC people would be happy. Unfortunately, when Fractal faced the design decisions associated with a cross-platform product, they decided against cross-platform data formats, and relied on the Mac's resource fork architecture. Which has a lot of nice advantages, as long as you're not transferring files; but meant that the PC files needed to be different. CL has finally fixed this problem for Poser 5, and that's great -- any PC packages that don't need pefs and that are at least ProPack aware (png instead of rsr) work just fine on both without any conversion.

Hi, I like the installers. The only problem is when you view the readme (and they all say the same thing) that the bump files might need converting from jpgs. So you go to find the textures to do this, but they don't tell you where the textures went. That can be tricky. Love esther

I much prefer to use extract rather than install and dump the files into a temp folder. That way I know what is in there, and where it ought to be going. A tidy sit or zip file with no VISE installer would be even more convenient. Carolly

I just use the DAZ installer to install files to the directory of my choice. It's pretty simple, you just hit "cancel" while it's searching and tell it where to put the files. :) Once I sort everything out and run CorrectReference on it, I move it to my Runtime. bonni

Some update installers look for the product before installing to varify purchase. Make sure base files are installered and where they should be for installer to find them

I like the installers; hand-installing one or two packages is no huge chore, but I frequently have to install 10 or 20 at a crack, and dragging individual items to their various directories (and sub-directories, and sub-sub-directories) loses its appeal real quick. Out of the hundreds of DAZ's installers that I've used, the last two updaters were the only ones that didn't work for me... not a bad average.