I HATE the DAZ content installers. They REALY make me crazy. What are they? Some sort of anti-piracy measure? They are just aweful compared to dragging a runtime folder into the Poser folder. Does anyone else hate them? Does anyone actualy know why DAZ packages their stuff suchly? P.S. Why does DAZ give such cryptic names to the horrible installer downloads instead of names that give some clue to the contents?

Cryptic names? I like the installers personally.

I just tell the installer to unzip in a directory I created and then put the stuff where I want it. Marque

They used to bug me until I started using multiple runtimes, now I just install one file at a time, then go to that particular runtime and rename all of the newly installed folders in the Library folders so that I can easily find co-ordinating files.

Like Marque, I install to a temporary directory, rename the folders and arrange things the way I want, run CorrectReference on them (because DAZ NEVER manages to put in complete paths), and then transfer them to Poser. That way I know where everything is (because I named it, myself). The download names have the product ID and a descriptive name. They used to only have the product name, though, so older files can be confusing. I just rename them. ;-) bonni

Yup. I prefer to do my own installations, where I want the files, with names that mean something, and without all the stupid !!! to interfere with my Runtime order. I don't mind a decoder for expansion sets and upgrades, but I do mind having to use their installer just to unpack a stand-alone item. I especially mind it when they use the wrong case or the wrong spelling on a path name. Carolly

The old ones were more cryptically titled than the new ones. Perhaps you bought some of their older products. I like the installers. The readme tells you where everything went. If you don't like it, move it. :) Jay

My old downloads have numbers but no names, dozens of my DAZ files have no names, only numbers, I made copies of them with names added to the number since I wanted to keep the downloaded files completely "pure"... I also have a look up table indicating which numbers mean which file. "ps_mo026b_pc1.exe" is a recent ackawizition, and "ps_tx294b_pc2.exe" and "ps_ac180.exe". More of the recent stuff I have does have some nameishnessness in addition to the numbers but they can be realy cryptic, at least to me. I got the wonderful 3D Starter Content recently but the files appropriate to my system on the download page were not utterly clear to a non-techy like me. I managed but I wish it had not required so much of my higher level faculties. My biggest beef though is the installers spinning and spinning looking for runtimes... if I cut it short it invariably has not found the runtime I want (and I have to click each "poser.exe" to see its path!) - sometimes (maybe my installers are old) there is not an option to browse. So the whole matter of canceling or not canceling the search for runtimes, identifying which Poser.exe is which, plus the clicking-through and browsing for runtimes just bums me out compared to using my WinXP decompression on the fly to just drag the zip folder of MP content on to the alternate runtime of my choice all sitting nice and neat in my root directory. I prefer the control and not to have my desktop taken up with a process, I prefer at least when the installer window can be resized. But I guess I am just a ludite... I would prefer if I could work from the DOS shell without 200Mb of Windows overhead messing with me. I totaly would have got a Linux box but it appears that Poser would require a full Windows install to run.

I never let the installers look for anything. I just put things where I want them, and LOVE Daz's installers!

Oh, one hint.... The temp directory I use to install my Poser stuff in on drive F, while my actual Poser installation is on a drive farther down the alphabet. In the temp directory, I put a blank file (I used a text file) called poser.exe. When the installer starts to run, it hits the first "poser.exe" it finds, so it always goes to that temp directory first. Works perfectly. :-) bonni

We download them in their own folder called "Dnnn_ItemName" where nnn is a number that started with 000 and can go up to far too high (999). We never let the exe search for anything, but have it execute itself in that same folder. Then we throw away weblinks and info files (never anything in there worth reading). Only prob is that sometimes you have to upgrade, and place a copy of a file (temporarily) into that same folder. These runtime files we keep on an external HDD and a CDRom(s), and then we place them in the Runtime folder(s). Yes, we prefer zips.

throw away weblinks and info files Me, too, although I actually keep the readmes, just in a folder of their own on a separate drive (and NEVER in the Poser runtime!). Only prob is that sometimes you have to upgrade, and place a copy of a file (temporarily) into that same folder. Yes, this is true. It's not usually too hard to figure out which .obj you need, though, and if necessary, you can copy a whole folder over temporarily so that the installer can find it. I find it amazing that DAZ came up with these installers because it was supposed to make it easier, and all it does is make a lot of people find "workarounds" for the way the installers work. bonni

I have to go and delete my .html files because they really don't tell you much of anything other than where to find files. I keep them for awhile just in case I forgot to name something, but they do take up considerable room and all say pretty much the same thing. I do keep the readme's though..and one day I may remember to actually read one, LOL

DAz's installers only run once on my system before their deleted. Like the others I point them towards a empty folder with a fake poser.exe in it. Once corrected and rearranged to my liking, I make my own zip files to actually install the item in my runtime folder. This has proven useful for both having archives without the criptic names, and installing something later on that's keyed to a certain file. Since my archives have all the path information stored in them, it's easy to extract just that file into my fake poser folder and then delete it back out once the new item's installer has been run.

Interesting. Historically, DAZ gets away with using installers becuase they are DAZ. Anyone else using them gets vocal, constant complaints about any sort of installer. And yet, for newer users, installers really are easier to use. It's the long term user that has had plenty of experience and already established a workflow and habit that tends to dislike them more. On a strictly personal note, I dislike the installers becuase they slow down my ability to restore or reorganize my runtimes. I can unzip an entire runtime in a single fire and forget process because I have my zip files organized according to the runtimes I use. With the installers, however, I have to do them each one at a time, and even when my impatience gets the better of me and I do 10 to 15 files at once, it still means flipping back and forth between them. as a general rule, I've since adotped the habit of converting all my daz files over to zip files.

Maybe I will do this install then zip routine. The bottom line is they just take a heck of a long time on my system esp. compared to dragging a runtime out of the zip and onto my choice of alternate runtime folders. If I want to change a set up I just drag the zipped runtime onto my desktop, change folder names, rename, and delete stuff as I like then drag the runtime into the alternate runtime folder of my choice. I love that I can look into a .zip install and see what is pecisly in there before installing.

bookmark installation

I do as Marque. Alternatively, there are unzip utilities that will open a self-extracting archive zip as though it were a .zip file. I get irritated by the way the Daz installer creates a grammatically incorrect directory called Readme's (it isn't a possessive, so should not have an apostrophe).

Hey Phantast, would you save me sometime if you can? Do you know the name of any specific freeware/cheapware apps that can do this function of opening self-extracting files? Winzip isn't working.