After a good year of avoiding Poser all together, the siren call finally got to me and I started up the old P4.  It's old addictiveness kicked in like a mule and I decided that enough time had probably passed that the bugs had been worked out of the latest version and I'd take a chance and try it.

Bought P6 via download, installed the SR3, and played around a little.  Decided the material room was confusing as hell after P4, but the "simple" tab wasn't so scary as all that.  So... cool.  I'm ready to play with my old figures and start creating new scenes.

I move a copy of the P4 Runtime folder into the Download folder of Poser 6, start 'er up and...

"This application has failed to start because AS132_12.dll was not found.  Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

WTF?  It just worked fine two seconds ago. 

I try to reinstall over the old files, but get the same message. 

I try to reinstall, then reboot, but get the message again.

I delete EVERYTHING in the folder (including the copy of the P4 Runtime, which is HUGE), reinstall without the old runtime, and... It Works. 

So... the old P4 Runtime appears to be corrupting the P6 installation.  This bites big time because I have way too much invested in old content to just toss it aside.  We're talking gigs of characters, props and texture files.

Has anyone else run into this?  After all this time, I know I can't be the only one.  This has got to be an old question, but I don't see any references to AS132_12.dll in the backlog of the forum.

Any help from the Masters out there would be appreciated.

Rather than copy/pasting to the download folder try linking your existing P4 runtime from within the P6 library.

Open the library window.

Keep clicking the "up directory" icon until you can go no further.

Now click on the "+" icon at the foot of the library window. Mouse over the icon will reveal the text "Add Runtime"

Follow the promts from there on.

PhilC is absolutely correct.  Don't move your P4 Runtime, just link to it.  That's one of the biggest advantages to Poser starting with version 5, the ability to use external runtimes.

Right now, the only things I have in my default Runtime are the DAZ people and what comes with P5 and P6.  Everything else is out on an external hard drive sorted by all kinds of things, character clothing, props, vegetation, stuff like that.  I love it because I can load and unload the external runtimes as I need them and it keeps Poser from taking forever to open.

Ah!  Thanks, I'll try that.

You may still need to uninstall Poser 6 and reinstall it if you copied over Poser 6 DLL files with Poser 4 DLL files.

Yep.  I moved the entire Runtime to the C: drive, deleted P6, then reinstalled with the SR3.  Following Phil's instructions, I'm now able to pull up all of my files.

Thanks again for the help.

Now... has anyone invented an AA / 12 step program for Poser?  Something tells me I'm going to need it again.

Ummm... "Renderosity" Is your one stop AA/12 Step program for all your Poser Additctions! :tt2: