I have been working with Max, Maya and others for the several years, used many plug ins and add ons, but now I have poser and alot of free downloaded content, I extract it as (usually) stated in a read me file with the stuff, but I don't think it making it into the correct folders,...or something it's not showing up anyway.
I am currently working on making a medical equipment set of free models for you guys including a O.R. environment (it was a request) SO any help on this would be appreciated,
and where can I get the Victoria 4 model?

Victoria 4 is at www.daz3d.com  The base model is free, the expansion packs are not.

If you install new content in Poser, the folders and thumbnails don't show up automatically. You have to force a refresh, the easiest way is quitting Poser and starting it up again.
Not all freebies are cleanly packaged, though most of the newer ones are. The newer freebies should show up nicely in your Poser libraries.

A fairly recent trend in both freebies and commercial items is installing the item into a separate "runtime". Two possible solutions:

• link to that new runtime as an external runtime;
• move the subfolder called Runtime from that new external runtime to the main Poser folder.

"extracted" or "installed"?  How did you acquire your copy of Poser 7?

Quote - "extracted" or "installed"?  How did you acquire your copy of Poser 7?

ok, let's put that to sleep right now, I purchased my poser 7 from amazon.com $179,
I don't do piracy, I don't like piracy, I don't tolerate piracy, I have worked on two video games,
Brother in arms: earned in blood, and Stuntman 2 which will be coming out later this year, if it's still on schedule and I know it will happen but I hate to think of all the hours (10 - 12 a day 6 - 7 days a week ) that is put in on making a game it will be copied and "shared" while the artist lose money that they/we should be getting! So now you  (I hope) have your answer.
Now the free content I have been downloading while waiting on my poser to arrive is zipped or rar, all requiring a "extraction"
                                                   any ways thanks for the "help"

The Victoria 4 base isn't free any more, although it's still dirt-cheap if you're a Platinum Club member.

Sorry impuls3d, the question was most probably not whether you pirated Poser 7, it was whether you bought the download version or the boxed version. 

Dr. Geep has extensive tutorials on what goes where. Most of it is tailored towards Poser 4 and 5, but is equally valid for Poser 7. Do a search for "geep" in the forums and you'll probably find what you need pretty soon

The manual also covers how the libraries are organized, but isn't really clear.

One thing you should be aware of: many Poser library files refer to other files. If the references aren't correct, Poser will try to locate the file by itself (very time consuming) and quite often fails. 
Fixing up the references can be done by hand using a text editor - tedious and time consuming work - or automatically by CorrectReference.
The free CorrectReference utility fixes texture references. The commercial CorrectReference Pro (Hogsoft) will also fix geometry references and morph injection references. It'll handle both compressed and uncompressed Poser files.

Commercial products are required to have correct references. Freebies don't, but the better freebie makers will make sure the references ARE correct.

As for free figures, you might also want to dowload the Victoria 3 figure. As far as I know, the base figure is still free, there are quite a few free texture packs around, and she's still the most popular female Poser figure around.

Impuls3d, if you are running Windows, you should be able to right-click on the zip file and then select "Open with".   (That may work with Apple, too, but I haven't a clue about Apple.)   Select the utility which you would normally use to unzip files.   Rather than prompting you to install the files all over again, this should display the folder which  is meant to be installed.  Can you see what that folder is called and then click on it, to see how the subfolders are structured, please?   Screen captures would be useful.    I think it will be easy to see what the problem is, with that information.

I figured it out, on the tab menu where you see pose, face.... the last tab is content, that takes you to CP.com but it also has an option to load content from a zipped archive, and it loads it all in there nicely.